


Peter Pettigrew and the Deathly Hallows

by AverageFish



Series: Deathly Hallows and Drunken Butterflies: Variations on a Theme [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Horcruxes, Autism Spectrum, Master of Death (Harry Potter), Reincarnation, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25236877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AverageFish/pseuds/AverageFish
Summary: Joining the Order was easy, a chance to die for their beliefs. It was much harder to live with his own choices, each worse than the next, until all he had left was to face the person he had become.This is the story of a man who survived, like a cockroach. This is the story of a man who did the wrong things for the right reasons, a man who betrayed everything he was and is now trying to make things right.APeter reincarnated as Harryredemption fic you didn't even know you wanted. No character bashing—Peter's character is very relatable. Falling down the slippery slope of your own decision-making is so much morehumanthanrat.AN: No Horcruxes AU. The pairings are tagged, so slash-haters are forewarned of some fleeting teenage crushes, but there won't be any underage relationships. Betad by Eider Down.
Relationships: Cedric Diggory/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Series: Deathly Hallows and Drunken Butterflies: Variations on a Theme [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2168334
Comments: 275
Kudos: 323
Collections: Identity Crisis





	1. This is the dead land, this is cactus land

Reviewers have been encouraging me to post a _work in progress_ collection, so I thought I might as well share this. It's growing quickly but far from finished.

I have always found Peter's character very relatable. Falling down the slippery slope of your own bad decision-making is so much more _human_ than _rat_.

As usual, thank you to [Eider Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15465966) for being so wonderful. 

* * *

Content warning: character death, grief, swearing.

Disclaimer: Chapter titles are lines from T.S. Eliot's _The Hollow Men_ , though out of order.

* * *

Peter’s mam always said he’d been born under a lucky star. 

“Look at them,” she’d coo, enchanting fairy lights to hover around him as she tucked him into bed. “As long as the lights are with you, you’ll be alright.”

The first person he’d met on the train to Hogwarts was named after the brightest star in the night sky. Peter took it as an omen and decided they should be friends.

So he followed Sirius into Gryffindor and hoped it would make him noble and brave—everything that mattered.

He always felt rather slow compared to the rest of them. Sure, he was great at Herbology and he knew the night sky like the back of his own hands—but Charms, Transfiguration, the _real_ magical subjects? He was pants at them.

It was lucky he shared a dorm with the brightest minds in his year. They tutored him through the animagus transformation, seven OWLs, and five NEWTs. They let him sit with them in the common room. They let him bask in their light while they shone like stars, strong and brilliant.

Peter counted himself lucky.

xoxox

The war came like a skillet to the back of the head.

It really shouldn’t have—they’d all known what had been simmering in the background. But knowing of something and facing the reality of it were vastly different things.

Remus apprenticed with Professor Kettleburn to learn more about the creatures which he had such a knack for. James and Sirius, talented _and wealthy_ as they were, could have done anything. Noble Gryffindors to the core, they decided to train as aurors.

Even _Snivellus_ had a plan for his life, going to study potions in France.

Peter had no grand plans, nor great magical aptitudes, nor wonderful opportunities. Instead he went home to his mother with her greying hair and greying memory. He tried to make things easier for her by figuring out how to enchant the sink to do the dishes, the broom to sweep the chaos under the rug, and the duster to knock loose the spiderwebs in the rafters.

His mam thanked him by calling him _Benedict_ , as if his father hadn’t been dead for the past decade. 

One morning he found her lying at the bottom of the stairs. The fairy lights he’d cast so Mam could better find her way hovered anxiously around her broken form. They winked out one by one as the sun rose on a grey Halloween morning. 

Sirius and James took four hours to answer his floo call. They stumbled through the front door laughing about some recent fete, something they’d conveniently forgotten to invite Peter to.

They found him sitting on the cold floor by the cold body.

“Peter, your hands are freezing,” Sirius said, pulling him to his feet. “Come on, I’ll bring you to James’ and we’ll figure this out.”

It took an entire day of paperwork and interviews. “No, she was dead when I found her. No, I did not bring her to St Mungo’s because _she was dead when I found her._ No, I don’t know when she filed her last will. No, I am an only child, there’s only me…” 

James decided it’d be better if Peter came to live with him and Sirius for a while. “The manor house is too empty anyway,” he complained in jest. As if having too many rooms was a common and taxing problem for those with too many Galleons to their names.

Peter wouldn’t know. He just inherited his mother’s mortgage, forcing him to sell her house and every memory in it to some ponce who wanted to tear it all down. Seeing his life packed neatly into five trunks felt like an anvil on his chest. 

He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t think and he felt very very small and unimportant. 

A week passed before James and Sirius could convince him to transfigure back from being a rodent.

Time flashed by in moments: blistering hot showers that had him feeling just as cold as before, sitting by the fireplace watching James, Sirius, and Remus horsing around. A full moon came and went.

Yule brought good news. “Lily’s pregnant!” James had screamed. “I’m having a baby!”

The others were jubilant, popping open a ridiculously old bottle of wine. They drew up hasty wedding plans, laughing all the while. 

_Didn’t they see how broken the world was?_ People were dying, the war draining them of...everything. The numbers of dead that came with every Daily Prophet had long become meaningless. _How could someone bring a child into this?_

“Sirius, you’ll be my best man of course,” James announced, cheeks already glowing from the second bottle.

Nobody even glanced Peter’s way.

At the wedding, Lily was radiant. James looked at her like she was something precious and wonderful. 

Peter wondered if anyone would ever see him like that.

xoxox

Sometimes he'd catch them talking behind closed doors about Dumbledore’s vigilante group, of prophecies and planned raids. But however small the obstacle of a door was for a rat, their hearts seemed to become ever more guarded as Lily’s belly swelled with new life.

xoxox

“Our little Prongslet,” Sirius jested, acting far too childish to be any kind of parent.

“He’ll be named something normal,” Lily protested, half her attention still with the law book on her lap. “Harry after my father, or Rosemary if she’s a girl.”

Peter sat there and quietly marvelled how someone so strong could come from such weak blood. _She just_ told _James how things would be!_ Peter had never had the courage to tell his friends anything. 

Watching Lily’s studies progress just made him feel smaller. _Him, a pureblood wizard, in the shadow of a muggleborn._

He yearned for—something, anything but this purposeless emptiness.

xoxox

Lily was the one to tell him he’d have to find somewhere else to stay. They were moving, and cottage in Godric’s Hollow apparently didn’t have enough room for a rat.

James found a trunkmaker down Horizont Alley that was willing to take Peter on as an apprentice, so he was packed up and shipped away with the not-so-subtle push to _make something of himself_. 

_“_ Your mother would be proud,” Remus said, patting Peter on the back in farewell.

Remus had never even talked to Peter’s mother. How _dare_ he.

xoxox

Wenceslas Whittaker let Peter stay in a little room on the shop’s ground floor. There were a few discarded trunks bearing expansion charms, so the space was more than enough. Most nights Peter slept curled up on a pillow by the windowsill, whiskers twitching gently as the war raged and the world burned.

When it came time to appoint a secret keeper for the Potters’ cottage, Peter was surprised they remembered him at all. Baby Harry was already big enough to crawl about, staring intently at the fairy lights Peter conjured. 

Peter was a sensible choice—he lived a dull life, safe from the war. The magic of being secret keeper meant he’d only be able to visit the property once a month, but nobody seemed to mind that.

And best of all: nobody would suspect him. After all, who would put their trust in a rat?   
_I’m terrified of dying_ , Peter wanted to protest. _I faint at the sight of blood, I’ll cave before the second_ Crucio _is cast. I’m not made for this._

Despite the way his knees felt weak, Peter agreed to keep their secret. They'd done so much for him already, it was only fair to do something for them in return. 

Mam had always insisted on things like _courage_ and _integrity._

xoxox

Master Whittaker was a good teacher despite his grouchy demeanour and acerbic wit. He showed Peter how to stitch the leather together, and what the runes did. Soon he had Peter doing most of the detailed work to spare his failing eyesight. The pay was shite, but Peter thought it was a good arrangement.

He should have known it was too good to last. 

xoxox

They broke into the shop at exactly two in the morning. Peter almost fell off his windowsill in fright as the proximity ward sounded. He used his mirror to alert Sirius, then called the aurors over the floo.

Transforming back into a rat, he scrambled into the front room to assess the damage.

They were wearing black masks and black robes, their boots massive black leather. The leader was shouting at the other two while he raced up the stairs to Master Whittaker’s rooms. The other two stayed, overturning the inventory without stealing a thing. 

Pettigrew slunk into a dark corner to transform back, his heart thundering in his ears as he fired off two stunners before they could notice him. Then he fumbled after the sound of crashing and voices—followed by echoing silence.

Someone was coming his way. He shrank into the shadows, his tail curling tightly against him as steps pounded past.

He found Master Whittaker lying on the floor, a broken lance pinning him into place. Peter looked around, desperate to stop the bleeding somehow, bitterly regretting he’d never learnt how to side-along someone. 

“Look at me, boy,” Master Whittaker wheezed at him. “Did you catch him, did you stop him?”

“Help is coming, sir,” Peter pleaded. _Please don’t die, please don’t die, please don’t—_

The disappointment in his master’s eyes sawed through him like a jagged blade. “I thought…thought you were a Gryffindor…”

The aurors arrived too late. Sirius came just in time to see Peter being led off, his bloodstained wrists in cuffs. “Suspicious circumstances,” the aurors murmured. “Difficult times. No signs of theft.”

Peter was questioned again and again until he couldn’t remember his own name, let alone his grief. “You stand to inherit the shop, that’s motive,” they argued.

“I wouldn’t know how to run it, I’ve only been there a year!” The protest fell on deaf ears. 

The night before his trial, a woman in dark, hooded robes sauntered up to Peter’s cell as though the Dementor couldn’t touch her. “We can help you, Peter,” she said, voice like a viper. “We can arrange it so you walk free tomorrow. Is that what you want, Peter Pettigrew?” She made his name sound like a coo, sending shivers up his spine.

The Dementor's cold was pressing on him from all sides, leaving him feeling terribly, horribly alone. He licked his lips.

“For what price?”

The woman giggled madly. “Yes or no, itty bitty Petey?”

Peter had never been brilliant like his friends, but he wasn’t _stupid_. He knew no matter which answer he gave, it’d be a monumental mistake.

_But his friends hadn’t come to help him. It was this, or a life in Azkaban._ The aurors didn’t have any other suspects to pin this on and he knew they were desperate to be seen closing cases.

“Alright.”

The mad cackling still echoed in his ears long after the woman left. 

xoxox

The trial was a blur. The chair’s chains wrapped icy metal around his wrists. Master Whittaker’s brother testified against Peter’s character, despite them never having met. Peter could already feel the walls closing in on him when a highborn woman stepped forwards. 

“Narcissa Malfoy née Black, witness for the defence,” she announced herself. 

_Sirius’ cousin?_ Peter looked around desperately, but he knew his dormmate wasn't here, hadn't made it to the trial that would condemn Peter for life. _This had to be the mysterious woman's work_ . He could still hear the cackling, the crooning. _Mysterious madwoman_ , he corrected himself.

“I was summoned to Gringotts late that night on business and saw three men loitering before the trunkshop on Horizont Alley. I can identify one of them as Mister Boleslaw Whittaker, brother of the deceased. They put on black masks like the terrorists known as Death Eaters are said to wear, then entered the shop.”

The room broke out in muttering. Peter felt something fizzing in his chest, filling him with buoyant bubbles. Letting him off would have reopened the case, but having someone else to blame could overturn the stacked conviction. _Perhaps, there was hope…_

It took an hour’s debate before the chains unclasped themselves. Someone handed Peter a foil-wrapped _Ministry Issued Bar, 50% Cacao,_ which tasted better than the label had led him to believe. The warmth that flooded him felt like boulders tumbling off his bowed back. 

xoxox

* * *

AN - I'd love to know your thoughts. Would you rather I post more unfinished works, or stick to the stuff I have already completely written? More of my writing [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/8207725/AverageFish).

I'll be posting updates every fortnight, as of mid-October the next 50k words are ready to go. 


	2. In death's other Kingdom

His first stop after a shower was to apparate to Godric's Hollow. He barely caught himself as he stumbled through the door.

"Peter," James cried, "it's good to see you! We weren't expecting you until Harry's birthday party tomorrow."

"I—" the words died in his throat, leaving an unpleasant aftertaste on his tongue. _Hadn't anybody told them?_ "I thought I'd come over for, er, dinner? Make sure everything's alright?"

"Well, come in," James ushered. Peter could hear Lily soothing Harry through a tantrum upstairs; the boy was just as difficult now as he'd been a year ago.

They sat through dinner talking about inane, useless things. _As if he cared about their herb garden, or Lily's studies, or James' foray into his uncle Fleamont's journals._

Peter felt the pressure building inside him like he was about to explode.

Finally, James went to put Harry to bed. Lily settled Peter on the couch, smiling gently at him. "Go on then, what's been bothering you?" she asked.

It all rose in him, bubbling up like an out-of-control cleaning spell. He sucked in a breath, and another. He could feel Lily's hand on his shoulder but it seemed very far away.

He wasn't getting enough air. "Have you—" his voice squeaked. Peter cleared his throat and tried again. "Have you heard from Sirius?"

He could still see it: the aurors leading Peter off. Sirius, the brightest star, just watching.

And Master Whittaker's voice still echoed, gurgling with blood. _I thought you were a Gryffindor._

"No," Lily answered, "Not for a week. Why, is something the matter?"

"There was an attack," Peter heard himself say. "They killed Master Whittaker." Something wet dripped down his face. _Surely it shouldn't be so difficult to breathe?_

Lily's arms wrapped themselves around him. He felt stiff, uncomfortable, small and alone. "Oh Peter," she murmured. "I'm so sorry. I'm glad you're alright. You _are_ alright?" She had drawn back to peer at him.

The words were choked up inside him, all trapped pressure with nowhere to go. Peter scrubbed at his face and forced a weak smile.

This was the moment James chose to storm in, waving a letter through the air. 'There was a raid, Sirius got hurt—"

He frowned at the two of them on his couch. "Peter, are you alright?"

_No, no, I'm not alright, nothing's alright, it'll never be alright ever again—_

He nodded, though the smile still felt distinctly watery. He didn't have the words, and James obviously didn't have the time.

"Right, well, I'm flooing to Hogwarts, Albus just called a meeting. Lils, you should come too. Peter, you'll watch Harry for us? We'll let you know what happened when we get back."

Time stuttered around him. When he caught up to it, Lily was stepping into the floo after her husband, bearing an apologetic smile.

Peter wanted to cry, to scream, to sob, to rage, to—

He let himself shrink. Wormtail clambered up the stairs and curled up in Harry's crib, feeling nothing at all.

xoxox

He slept uneasily and woke to the feeling of his breath being squeezed out of him.

But it was only Harry, his pudgy fingers gripping too tightly. Resisting the urge to bite, Wormtail held vigil over the sleeping child, listening to the creaking house and his own whirling thoughts.

Eventually the Floo flared, so late it might as well have been morning. Footsteps puttered up and down groaning steps, doors opened and closed gently. For a moment James smiling face was looking down at them, as the man cast fresh fairy lights to hover over Harry's crib.

Peter felt the sheer normalcy of it constricted around him. _How could they carry on like his world hadn't just ended?_ Like they hadn't a care, with the Potter money and their Fideliused safehouse and stupid vigilantism. A happy family, a calm point midst the storming war, death, and suffering spinning the world around.

It made Peter feel sick.

When Harry woke, Peter dressed and fed the now one-year-old. He listened attentively to the portraits as they dispensed advice on how to do _Harry-this_ and _Harry-that._ There was a note pinned to the cold-cupboard reading: _Sirius is on the mend, it was an accident, just a flesh-wound._

 _An accident—_ the dishonesty almost dripped from the parchment. Peter knew about Dumbledore's group, that they ran around stunning Death Eaters and accomplishing nothing. What were aurors for, what did the Ministry do, if not keep the peace? How was a stunning spell going to fix anything?

He'd heard Master Whittaker muttering about it angrily over the morning paper. Without proof of the Death Eaters' wrongdoing, the aurors were helpless to uphold the law. Peter'd found himself agreeing quietly with his Master more often than not—

His Master Whittaker, who was gone.

The thought reverberated around Peter's mind, leaving no space for anything else.

He was alone.

Lily and James were stirring upstairs, he could hear the telltale groaning of floorboards. It was noon, they'd be setting up for the birthday soon. It'd be _Harry-this_ and _Harry-that._

There wasn't space for him here, Peter understood suddenly. Not even for someone to send a letter: _Attack at trunk shop. Peter's being led off by aurors._

No, Sirius had thrown himself headfirst into whatever it was that had gotten him hurt.

They were always too far away. _You can't see by starlight alone._

Already he could hear steps on the stairs. He was out of time.

He felt at once surrounded—and abandoned.

With a last glance to where Harry was staring out the window, Peter dashed out the door and disapparated.

xoxox

The madwoman found him on his knees, scrubbing the bloodstain on Master Whittaker's floor.

"I've been looking for you, itty bitty Petey," she crooned. Peter didn't understand how she'd even gotten through the wards, but it didn't matter.

His hands were covered in fresh suds and old blood.

Craning his head, Peter looked up at her. The hooded cloak was enchanted to cover her face, but it couldn't hide the malicious smile in her voice. "The Dark Lord does not like to be kept waiting."

The inevitability of it all should have filled him with dread, or fear.

Yet, all Peter felt was numbness.

xoxox

The room was opulent. The room was sombre.

The madwoman sent him towards the shadow-shrouded end of the hall. There was nobody else around, causing his footsteps to echo against the mosaic floor.

Black-and-white-and-black-and-white. Peter tried to step only on the white. The ceiling was too high; he hunched to make himself smaller.

The Dark Lord was monstrous, skin like something pulled off a cup of hot milk. The Dark Lord was magnificent, magic crackling around him like a cloak.

Peter fell to his knees, bowing even lower than the madwoman had before she'd left him here. He didn't want to die.

"Peter Pettigrew," He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named said, mouth curling around the syllables like an unwanted caress. "Rise. Let me tell you a story about three brothers…"

His father had read the _Tales of Beedle the Bard_ to him every night for ten years, Peter knew the words like he knew his own name. He listened carefully nonetheless. He wasn't ready to die.

"And so he greeted Death as an old friend," the Dark Lord finished, fiddling with a ring on his finger. He pierced Peter with his stare. "Do you think of Death as a friend, Peter Pettigrew?"

Fear clawed at his throat, locking his knees. Peter fisted the fabric of his robes, his body taught like a violin string. "I d-do not—," he licked his lips, "I do not want to d-die, my Lord."

This seemed to please You-Know-Who. The laughter was bright, a stark contrast to the looming shadows. "Very well. Tell me, Peter Pettigrew, what you know about James Potter."

Fuck.

 _Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_.

"My Lord?" But stalling was pointless.

Everything was pointless.

He took a deep breath. "We were dormmates in school. His best friend is Sirius Black. He married a muggleborn, Lily Evans."

The Dark Lord's renewed laughter carried on too long, curling in the wrong places. It echoed, making it sound like there were seven of him. "You do not like the mudblood?"

 _It wasn't that he didn't like her_. She was kind, helpful, always patient with him. In another life he might have considered her a friend too. But Peter wasn't dense, he could feel her condescension when she talked to him, he knew she only ever spoke to him because he was James' old dormmate. Not for Peter's sake. Nobody ever seemed to see _him_.

"She's studying law, my Lord," he said, the words tumbling from his mouth. "She orders James around sometimes and he just lets her. Listens to her." _Where were these words coming from?_ Something deep inside him twisted with old hurts, scabbed over but never healed. _It's true,_ a voice said, _they're not really your friends. They wouldn't listen to you like they do to Lily._

Peter swallowed it down. James, Sirius, Remus, and later Lily had helped him through school and life, had been there for him when his mother died—

 _They abandoned you,_ the voice spat—

 _They trusted me_ , he retorted, and that was that.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was smiling cruelly, Peter didn't need to meet his eyes to see that. "Did you know the Potters can trace their family back to Ignotus Peverell?"

Peter started. His mind flashed instantly to James' invisibility cloak. _A gift from my father_ , he had said. Yet, the cloak hadn't lost its magic in over a decade. _Could it be Death's hallowed cloak?_

Yet it seemed unlikely. Legendary artefacts should be pulled from stone after surmounting great trials, not presented, father-to-son, on a boy's eleventh birthday.

"You will bring me that cloak," the Dark Lord ordered, "and your debt to Narcissa will be paid."

 _Was that all? Just a cloak?_ Peter felt boneless, or was it weightless? He floated back to the apparition point. He'd been given a month to get a cloak from his friend and then he'd be free. _Free._

The relief carried him through the rest of the day as he took stock of the shop set aside Master Whittaker's personal things. Never had he expected the Dark Lord to be so reasonable.

While he cleaned, he fiddled with the words whirling around his head until he found the right ones for a letter.

_Dear James, dear Lily,_

_I'm sorry I had to leave so abruptly this morning, something came up. Thank you for letting me know Sirius is on the mend. I hope Harry's birthday went well._

_I have been sorting out the shop and figuring out what to do with it now that Master Whittaker's gone. I can make the trunks, but I'm far from a master craftsman. I miss him dearly but I'm coping. There's a trinket for Harry with this letter, just an enchanted puzzle-box. I hope he likes it._

_It's unfortunate we didn't get the chance to talk during my visit. I'd love to stop by again next month, is the 30th August alright?_

_Yours,_

_Peter_

xoxox

You know the drill: kudos, bookmark, review, share. Your support matters. Thank you all.


	3. The supplication of a dead man's hand under the twinkle of a fading star

"I do not tolerate fools," He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named spat, his voice filling the hall. "You have disappointed me."

Peter felt like he was shrinking, he wished the tiles would fold back and swallow him whole. 

" _Crucio_ ," You-Know-Who whispered. Peter screamed.

The Dark magic thrummed in the air, almost gleeful. If he'd had the space for it, Peter would have wondered how steeped this place was in curses; it was a rare thing for magic to grow its own sentience. 

He _wasn't_ thinking, though. Peter's body throbbed with pain. His heart thrummed in his chest, too fast--too slow.

He let himself lay on the floor, feeling the tears dribble off his face.

"Up. Get up! Now!"

Peter heaved himself to his knees.

"Pathetic," the Dark Lord sneered and turned away.

It wasn't Peter's first time being confronted with those words, with the way people dismissed him, with their cutting disappointment. The reality of it ached worse than a Cruciatus ever could.

Suddenly he could feel fury flaring inside him. "James Potter is part of Dumbledore's group," he called out, proud when his voice barely trembled. 

"And?" The word dripped with mockery. You-Know-Who wasn't even looking, his attention having shifted with some new arrival to the chamber. 

Peter could hear the click-click-click of boots against tile. He pushed himself to his feet. "I'm a rat animagus."

Lord Voldemort spun, studying him. The man's dark, probing magic surrounded Peter; it felt excited. "Fascinating," the Dark Lord purred. The second his attention was gone, Peter yearned for more. While his bones still ached from the Cruciatus, this sensation of scrutiny was filling him from his toes to his fingertips. The Dark Lord's attention felt like the most intoxicating ambrosia. 

"Very well Peter. Leave me now. You will be returning in a fortnight with good news."

Peter hurried away, his head held high. Sirius would bring him the invisibility cloak and he'd deliver it to the Dark Lord. He knew he wouldn't be disappointing the man again.

xoxox

It should have been so simple.

"I'm sorry, Peter," Sirius said, pacing through the shop like a whirlwind. "James loaned his cloak to Dumbledore. You understand." Sirius didn't sound very sorry. 

"He promised I could borrow it," Peter repeated for the third time. "I need it!"

"Look, it wasn't my choice, don't shoot the messenger." Sirius shrugged. He picked up a bag and fiddled with the catch. "Hey, can I have this?"

"Twelve Galleons," Peter recited, "Welsh Green, charmed with undetectable extension, feather-light--"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Sirius put it down and turned away. "You'd think, as your friend, I'd be worth a discount."

Anger bloomed hot and uncomfortable in Peter's chest. Sirius had inherited plenty of money from his uncle, whereas Peter was struggling to keep afloat. But no, Sirius was too caught in his own world of infantile drama, marauding, and vigilantism to give a rat's arse. Was this what friendship meant to him?

"Take me to the headmaster," Peter decided, words slipping from him before he could finish forming the thought. "I want to join the Order of the Phoenix."

 _I want to join the Order of the Phoenix? What?_

But Sirius was grinning, had wrapped Peter into a slapping embrace. "Brilliant, brilliant," he crooned. "Oh, we're going to have so much fun, it'll be just the four of us again, like at school when we went after Snivellus."

Peter resigned himself to hours standing guard while James and Sirius set up pranks, to crawling into filthy corners on their behalf, to being hit by stray spells as they pretended heroics and duelled. He could already hear their mocking laughter. _Relax, Peter, we're just kidding. Merlin, learn to take a joke._

Perhaps the Dark Lord would be pleased, a small voice in Peter's mind said. Perhaps he would look at Peter with that careful, assessing gaze, and say he was _fascinating_.

Something in his chest roared eagerly. He'd prove himself worthy. Besides, it wasn't like he was really doing anything harmful. Just a cloak, and a handful of Dumbledore's secrets.

You're betraying your friends, yet another part of him whispered. 

But really, hadn't _they_ betrayed him first?

xoxox

Peter convinced Sirius his animagus form should be kept secret too, so the interview with Dumbledore was rather pitiful.

Headmaster 'Call me Albus, my boy' Dumbledore spent the whole half-hour peering over his spectacles at Peter, going "Hmmm" and asking leading questions about the Peter's short experience being incarcerated. There weren't any auror secrets for him to reveal. It resulted in more peering and a lot of judging 'Hmmm's.

At the end of it Peter was certain he'd be shown to the door, pronounced a disappointment yet again. Instead, Albus invited him to the next meeting and offered Peter the chance to learn some healing magicks from Frank Longbottom.

It was a good idea. Peter couldn't stop himself from brightening, finally meeting Albus' eyes. "I'd like that very much," he said. The image of Master Wenzelas bleeding out in front of him would likely never leave him. 'I thought you were a Gryffindor,' it echoed in his ears.

Albus smiled then, as if some great mystery had just revealed itself to him. "I see," he said. "You are doing the right thing, my boy."

Right and wrong. Black and white. Dark and light.

Peter shivered despite the warmth of the fire. None of it mattered when everything was really just shades and shades of grey.

xoxox

The Dark Lord seemed pleased upon their next meeting, as if he'd forgotten the cloak entirely. He spent the first minute of their meeting laughing.

It made Peter's hair stand on end.

"Show me," Lord Voldemort hissed, and then the memory of Dumbledore's interview played out in Peter's memories. He could feel the Dark Lord's presence there in his mind watching with him.

It made Peter's stomach turn.

"Do not meet his eyes," Lord Voldemort ordered, then laughed again. "And ask Severus to teach you some Occlumency."

"Yes, my Lord." There was nothing else to be said. Dark magic rolled around him, tingling with the man's perverted glee. 

"I am pleased with your initiative," Lord Voldemort rasped.

It made Peter feel warm, like redemption.

"Tell me Peter," he continued, "I wonder what you know about...about prophecies?"

In his third year Peter had chosen Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes because Remus had promised to tutor him. "I never took Divination, my Lord."

The weight of You-Know-Who's gaze was pushing on him, a tangible thing. 

_What did he know about prophecy?_ Peter thought desperately. His favourite myths sprang to mind: Heracles, Oedipus, and Cassandra. "Prophecies are Fate's curses. Anything done to avoid them will only make the thing happen sooner."

The magic pulsed around him angrily, though Lord Voldemort had become perfectly still. Peter's gut sank with the heavy feeling of yet another wrong answer. "I'm certain you're much stronger than Oedipus and the old tales, my Lord," he squeaked, his mind scrambling. "After all, you are known to be the greatest wizard of our times."

Silence seemed to echo in the grand hall, lurking in the shadows only to return manyfold. Peter waited quietly, wondering if his heard was beating loud enough that the Dark Lord could hear it too.

"A prophecy was spoken about myself," the man said then, his voice quiet and contemplative. 

"Born as the seventh month dies," he recited, teasing the words apart, "the Dark Lord will mark him. As an equal, each holds a power the other knows not. The three will contend until one masters three."

It might as well have been, 'The Dark Lord will kill his father and marry the queen,' for all the sense that it made. "Three will contend until one masters three?" Peter parroted. "I don't understand, my Lord."

The man stood from his throne then, seeming to rise and rise until he loomed impossibly tall. "It means, Peter Pettigrew," Lord Voldemort spat, mood mercurial and threatening, "that you have now twice failed to bring me Potter's cloak. You _will_ find out when Dumbledore returns the cloak and then you _will_ find a way for me to visit the Potter home. And if you fail, Pettigrew…"

Someone else arrived in the hall, announcing their entrance with a crack of apparition. Peter wasn't sure he'd wanted to know the end of the sentence anyway. "Yes, my Lord," he said, bowing low.

But nobody was watching him anymore, nobody cared about the man trembling before the dias. When a conversation began over his head, Peter took it as his queue to leave.

The majestic room seemed to mock him with its gloom. _You aren't really welcome here,_ it crooned. _You don't matter, you've never mattered._

Determination welled in Peter's chest. It was only a cloak, Lord Voldemort wasn't asking the world of him. He'd find a day when the family was out and it'd all work out fine.

He'd make it all work out fine.

He didn't have a choice.

xoxox

The guild came the next day to take his shop from him. Master Whittaker's grown children flanked the guild's representative, smirking at their success.

If they'd only asked, Peter would have been glad to share the store with them. Hell, he'd even have given it to them, if only to save himself the pain of watching his own poor leadership drive the thing to ruin.

Peter folded quickly under the list of infractions as they were announced, read out pompously from a scroll as if these same demands hadn't been coming to him in the mail for weeks. He'd paid the Diagon Alley tax and he'd been working on getting his journeyman's papers, but couldn't they see he needed more time?

While the guildmistress droned on about how he was a failure, a disappointment, good for nothing at all, Peter hurried to pack his things before they were seized along with the rest of the shop.

And then the Malfoys showed up. 

"Hello Peter dear," Narcissa said kindly. "We heard you got into a spot of trouble."

Meanwhile Lucius was staring down the Whittaker siblings. "I believe you were disinherited by your own father, I can't imagine the shame." The man smiled in a way that was cold and wrong. "Perhaps you should go think about that while the adults sort this out."

Peter watched, wide-eyed, as the two turned wordlessly and left. 

"Lady Dagworth, such a pleasure to see you again outside the stuffy formality of the Wizengamot," Lucius simpered, fluttering his eyelashes at a woman fifty years his senior while his wife stood beside him. "This has all been a terrible misunderstanding, I'm sure. Let's sit down to tea and sort it all out."

The entire situation had left Peter feeling confused and oddly winded, but at least he was no stranger to fetching tea.

He felt like a child at one of his mother's gatherings, barely listening to old ladies gossip while he brought them another plate of cucumber sandwiches.

Except this time the conversation happening over his head was about him, his shop, his future.

It would have been nice to have a say. He grasped for words, stumbling shamefully over the right formulation in the privacy of his mind.

By the time he'd found his voice the Malfoys were already bustling the guildmistress out the door. "What happens now?" he asked quietly.

"Weren't you listening?" Lucius' voice was too loud in the small showroom, all sharp points and hard edges. "How disappointing."

"The Malfoy family is investing in this establishment," Narcissa explained gently. "We will be paying the shop's upkeep for the next two months while you focus on getting your qualifications. Then you will work for us until your debt is paid in full."

"Plus interest," Lucius added. "Furthermore, some of our _mutual friends_ might visit at times and you will assist in passing messages between us. Any questions?"

The way he'd said it made it perfectly clear that Peter was not supposed to have questions. He shook his head no.

Lucius stalked out, his robes billowing behind him, but Narcissa paused. "What is it, Peter dear?"

She was a Slytherin, they were all of them Slytherins and Peter knew he couldn't trust them. They'd use him and trap him before discarding him like rubbish.

Yet Narcissa was acting so sweetly. It had been an age since Peter had been shown kindness. He couldn't help himself, the words were already tumbling from his mouth. "Was that talk really all it took for the guild to back off?" It hadn't even been an hour yet his life had turned a new leaf, once again.

The woman's laugh was beautiful, nothing like her mad sister's. "A bit of money will go a long way if you know the right people. Any pureblood of means could have done it, we're so very lucky nobody else thought to make a deal with you first."

And with those light words she was gone, leaving a terrible sense of betrayal sitting like a lead ball in Peter's gut. He knew several _purebloods of means_ , after all.

Friends who hadn't stepped up to help him.

Peter's friends cared less about him than even the bloody _Malfoys_ did.

He remembered his companions in the stars, the ones from the tales of old that had been with him even before he'd turned eleven, before his father had died, back when it had been just him and the vastness of the night sky with nobody to be disappointed in him.

In History of Magic they'd learnt how the ancient civilisations had driven themselves barmy drinking from lead pipes and painting themselves with lead makeup. 

His gut twisted in on itself, and even though he knew his thoughts were poisoning him, knew this was wrong, knew the Malfoys were going to betray him too--

Peter felt like a rabbit with its paw caught in a trap. 

He had to get James' cloak. He had to get his journeyman's papers. He didn't have time to feel helpless, and he certainly didn't have time to fall apart.

Peter opened the shop the next morning as if everything was perfectly normal, thank you very much. He went through his day explaining how Ironbelly leather was better than Welsh Green, and no he could not undetectably expand a locket because he wasn't a jeweler, and yes Lord Fawcett the order would be ready as soon as he finished it.

He spent the night formulating letters:

Dear Dark Lord,  
I don't know when Dumbledore will give James his cloak back.  
It's not the kind of information I'm privy to and asking about it makes me look suspicious.

Yours (wait, am I yours now? I don't know if I want to be yours),  
Peter Pettigrew

Dear Prongs,  
Please I really need that cloak. For research purposes. Why is my wanting to see it for research less important than Dumbledore wanting to see it for research?  
I asked first. Isn't that worth anything?

Yours (am I though? We were friends, at least I thought we were, but actions speak louder than words),  
Wormtail

Dear Sirius,  
That bag you wanted is on sale at the moment. I haven't seen you in a while, are you so busy playing vigilante you don't have time to visit little old me?  
I always looked up to you, from the first day we met, but you seem to have lost some of your shine of late. Or maybe your orbit has changed.  
Maybe your orbit is the same as ever but I'm finally seeing things the way they really are.

Yours (or perhaps I belonged to a make-believe version of you that I had built in my head, but I'm beginning to see that it wasn't real. That we were friends only by proximity),  
Peter

Dear Remus,  
I miss you so much. Things have gone mad since you've been off running werewolf missions for the Order.  
I feel so alone. I don't even know who I am any more. Has my whole life been a lie?

Yours (though it would be nice if you'd write or call or send a bloody patronus, it's like you vanished),  
Peter

Dear Headmaster Dumbledore,  
Your _Order_ is a hub of chaos. What were you thinking? What are you doing?  
What's the point?

Sincerely,  
Peter Pettigrew

Dear Snivellus,  
Our mutual acquaintance told me to ask you to teach me occlumency. But I'm terrified of you and you hate me, so maybe we could not?

Thanks,  
Pettigrew

Peter used the lot of them as kindling, feeling an odd catharsis as he watched them curl into ash. 

He was alone, but in a way he'd always been alone. At least now he was aware of it.

The next night he apparated to Cornwall and laid out cushioning charms on the beach. He fell asleep watching the stars spin around the sky. Even though they made him feel small they also comforted him, these same stars connecting him through time to the ancients. Peter counted them like sheep: Leo, Lepus, Lupus, Lynx, all winking down at him like long-familiar friends.

xoxox

This story is having a harder time than usual taking off, likely because of my unusual choice of main character.

If you're enjoying what I write, please tell a friend, tell reddit, make a public rec (or, take out an ad in your local paper).

Thanks :)


	4. Is it like this in death's other kingdom

The Dark Lord marked him just as the year shifted from ripening to harvest. Peter cradled his arm to his chest, bitterness rising like bile in his throat.

The irony of it was a twisting knife alongside the pulsing pain of his arm. _You reap what you sow._ He didn't do himself the dishonour of wondering how it had come to this. At some point in a long line of bad decisions he had slipped, and now here he was, prostrating himself as he lied to the most powerful man in Britain.

"I'm working on getting the Secret for you in writing, my Lord. Everyone knows Sirius is the Potter's Secret Keeper, but he's fallible. He's much more likely to slip up to a friend than break under torture. It will be soon, my Lord."

The few seconds under the Cruciatus were expected. Peter screamed his pain and terror, knowing the abomination of a man revelled in the sound.

That was alright, though. Peter was used to how people laughed at him, he knew all about the joy in another's suffering. _It was no different than a malicious prank_ , he told himself sternly. He'd had worse, and he'd even thought to have enjoyed it.

Peter was dismissed swiftly after that, giving him barely enough time to straighten his mask and crawl to his feet. The Dark Lord was a busy man, even his plans likely had secret agendas. Peter's only responsibility was to get him a stupid cloak. 

As if Malfoy didn't have enough money to buy a new invisibility cloak for their lord, one that wasn't 'stained by the stench of blood-traitors'. Surely the Hallows couldn't be more than a story.

Peter's only _other_ responsibility was to his old friends, the ones he barely saw nor spoke with anymore. He had come up with a plan to get the Dark Lord into Potter Cottage, as ordered, so that they could steal the cloak and leave with no harm done. Prongs would be devastated, but he'd buy himself a new cloak, a better one with fresh charms. Nobody would get hurt. 

A victimless betrayal, so to speak. The perfect crime.

These things Peter told himself when he had time to think about what he was going to do, what he was in the process of doing.

The rest of his time was spent _not-thinking_ about things, because though he wasn't as clever as his friends he wasn't stupid either. The roiling pit of worms in his stomach didn't let him forget it, pulsing in tandem to the angry black mark on his arm. 

This was wrong. It was betrayal. It didn't matter if the Potter family survived, they'd never forgive him.

He'd be alone.

But an angry voice in the back of his head would answer. _They betrayed me first. They're just using me. What kind of friends are they anyway?_

Peter wasn't stupid, he knew hearing voices was a bad thing. So he let the worms fester unseen and made damn sure to keep himself very, very busy.

Frank Longbottom taught him healing spells, letting him help patch up the Order members when they returned from raids.

Malfoy sent Goyle's wife Priscilla to help him in the shop, so Peter taught her all about the sales side of things while he focussed on enchanting. He made sure not to see the increasing number of walk-in customers, nor hear how trunk orders were interspersed with messages about times, dates, and targets. It was none of his business, he'd decided. And ironically, business was booming.

As for his friends—he barely saw them. Remus was still away and Sirius was busy being reckless, pretending he wasn't mourning his brother. The nature of the Fidelius Charm meant Peter could only visit the Potter property once a month. A year ago when Dumbledore had explained it to them it had made a perverted sense: how many friends did people have that they could trust with their secret but were willing to see only twelve times a year? It made the Fidelius an unpopular protection, and hence one that no curse-breakers had bothered to specialise in. In short, it kept James, Lily and little Harry safe.

Peter had hated it before, had hated not being able to see what a small part of him had thought of as his family. But he relished in it now, because he had only one visit left before Samhain. Less than a day of pretending things were fine, he was fine, they were all fine. 

Sirius and James filled the cottage with their roughshod laughter, Lily relaxed in the corner reading law books and sending them occasional admonishments. Peter sat and basked in it, in the normalcy of it, in the way he was finally right in the middle of things only to realise he was very very far away.

He bounced Harry on his lap in the kitchen, listening to the boy's stubborn silence. The portraits explained all about how odd the boy was, how he didn't like this and wouldn't do that. As if portraits had any right to pretend at parenting. Eventually he transformed into a rat and curled up on the toddler's chest, feeling the way it rose and fell akin to stubborn bellows.

Harry was too hot and his grip was too tight but it felt comforting somehow. Like they were kindred spirits that didn't quite fit in with the rest of the world.

xoxox

The Dark Lord's triumph washed over him like a tsunami. Peter staggered, almost dropping the parchment in his hands. He'd spent a week pouring over some of Sirius' letters and another week practicing to make it look just right. 

> The Potters live at number three, Coleford Road, Godric's Hollow.

Lord Voldemort was cackling his delight while Peter's chest was sinking, sinking. He might as well be drowning in his own disappointment. 

But the Dark Lord evidently had a spy in Dumbledore's ranks, or at least a source who confirmed Peter's knowledge that the cloak would be back with the Potters in October. Peter had managed to delay the raid on the house until Samhain, at least. He knew the Order had a get-together planned at Hogwarts, some kind of memorial service in honour of their fallen. Peter had excused himself citing work, lest they foist babysitting duties onto him.

This was it. Tonight was the night. 

The Dark Lord was holding out his hand, inhuman chuckles still escaping from grey-tinged lips.

Making sure not to recoil, Peter reached out and touched milky skin. He had taught himself to side-along someone just for this.

They appeared in Godric's Hollow with a tremendous CRACK. A group of teens guising nearby shrieked their surprise before carrying on. The Dark Lord was staring hungrily at the cottage, still radiating his glee.

Peter turned to follow—

The house wasn't empty. 

_The house wasn't empty._

He caught the gate before it could swing back into place. The wrought iron was rough under his fingertips but he couldn't tell if it was cold.

A yellow light was on in the kitchen. Peter could see a shadow against the tulle curtain.

The Dark Lord rang the doorbell. It was like Peter was in a dream, falling backwards, his stomach jolting out of place.

It wasn't a dream. Peter didn't wake up. He could hear voices from very far away.

_Take Harry and run._

_(I thought you were a Gryffindor.)_

Peter lurched forwards. 

He was too late. 

xoxox

Peter’s heart felt like it was being crushed as he moved through the house. _Finite Incantatem_ hadn’t worked and he didn’t know what other counter to try.

So he pulled himself together and ignored it the best he could, his breath coming in great, shuddering bursts. 

The nursery door was gone, replaced by the reek of death.

Pulling himself together didn’t seem to be working very well. He had to move, _he had to move._ They would be coming soon. The whole roof had exploded, the place would be swarming with people. 

Little Harry was staring right through him, his eyes the wrong shade of deathly green. Oh gods, oh gods—the weight on Peter's chest kept getting heavier and he didn’t know what curse this was—

A crack of apparition outside reverberated through him. Peter snatched the ring and wand off the floor; it was all that remained of the Dark Lord. He covered himself with James’ cloak and huddled in the corner gasping for air. 

He could hear the sound of someone making their way up the wooden stairs, barely audible over the thud-thud-thud of his racing heart. Peter forced himself to breathe. In, out. Slowly. _Quietly_. 

Severus Snape stumbled in through the door. His eyes, always so cold and black, were blinking back tears. 

“No,” the man choked. “Lily, _no_ —”

Peter watched him collapse. It was awful, ugly, and private, but he couldn't make himself turn away. There was something fitting about the man's anguish; it seemed only right for her to be grieved so intensely.

Lily's neck lolled unnaturally as Severus clutched her to his chest. Green, terrified, empty eyes seemed to be staring right at Peter, crouched in his corner under the cloak.

The curse crushing his chest got neither better, nor worse. It just _was_ , heavy and numb and cold, _so cold._

Snape got up suddenly, setting Lily down. Her limbs splayed across the floor, taking up so much more space than…before. Snape swept one last unseeing look around the nursery and brushed his fingers through her hair.

With a swirl of his cloak and a crack, he was gone.

Peter jolted. He could hear now what Snape must have, the telltale sputtering of Sirius’ motorbike. Time to move, _time to run_.

Pocketing the Dark Lord’s things, Peter stood and fastened the cloak. “I’m so sorry Harry,” he whispered. 

The boy began to wail.

Peter’s heart clenched painfully. He knew he deserved it, deserved so much worse—

More footsteps were pounding up the stairs. He could feel his knees shaking, his body was drenched in sweat and he was freezing. Whether he deserved it or not, he wasn't ready to greet Death. “I’ll bring back your daddy’s cloak, I swear it,” he whispered, then disapparated. 

He barely had a minute at Master Whittaker’s to gather a few meagre things. He summoned them haphazardly into his own enchanted trunk.

“PETER!”

Sirius’ voice thundered through the shop, accompanied by the sound of a shattering window. “I’m going to _kill_ you.”

The growled threat was even more terrifying than the yell. Peter felt for his connection to the shop wards and let them fall, apparating away again.

To his mum’s old house. To Hogsmeade. To the graveyard his parents were buried in. To Godric’s Hollow—shit bad idea, bad idea—

To the place they’d holidayed once in Cornwall; it had been the last time they’d been a proper family. 

It was late and he was so tired, but no, he should go somewhere muggle. One more jump.

To the park by Lily’s old muggle home. Nobody would think to look for him here, surely—

There was a cloaked figure sitting on one of the swings. The man looked up. _Snape,_ Peter’s mind supplied helpfully, but he was already disapparating.

He missed his next landing. Peter hadn’t really been sure where he’d been going, just _away_. Carefully, he patted himself down. At least there was nothing missing. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest, like a desperate sparrow that knew it was about to die.

By the time he registered the spit pooling in his mouth it was too late. Peter retched, then turned around and heaved again. 

He felt empty, cold, _disgusting_. He knew he couldn’t run anymore. 

It was time to hide. 

He gathered James’ cloak around him and began to walk, looking for somewhere warm and dry. The lights of a petrol station blinked warmly up the street, beckoning with a loo and cigarettes.

Peter was halfway through the door when he realised his trunk was gone, left behind on one of his apparation jumps. He froze in place, searching his pockets in vain. He had no money. The attendant’s eyes were already boring holes in him. Peter looked up, shrugged with a meek ‘What can you do?’ smile and left.

No muggle money. No friends on either side to protect him. _No friends at all,_ his mind corrected helpfully. He couldn’t use magic; Sirius would be able to trace it. 

Just a dead man’s cloak around his shoulders and the Dark Lord’s wand burning a metaphorical hole in his pocket. 

_He had never felt so alone._

Peter walked and walked until dawn bloomed across the slivers of sky between buildings. He walked until the sidewalks became busy and his eyelids drooped. And then, just barely dodging some lady about to bump into him, Peter saw his salvation. 

“Pet Palace,” the sign pronounced. 

Peter slipped inside. If there was one thing left to him, it was being a rat.

The door chimed cheerfully. “We don’t open until nine!” a chipper voice called from the back. The room smelled of dry dog food, clean sawdust, and fresh coffee. 

There was a supply cupboard with its door open. Wrapping the cloak around the Dark Lord’s things, Peter placed the bundle on a dusty top shelf. Then he let himself shrink until the world became smaller, narrower, simpler. _Smellier_. 

Wormtail began to groom himself frantically.

A startled gasp interrupted him. Couldn’t he get a moment’s peace? “A rat!” the voice cried.

He pulled in his tongue from where he’d been licking his paw.

“Hello poppet. How did you get out?” the voice said, thawing. Wormtail let it approach, holding still as gentle hands scooped him up and dumped him on fresh newspapers. There was a bowl of food, a water bottle-thing, and some bedding in the corner. 

It was, quite frankly, heavenly. Wormtail was asleep before his tail could curl properly around himself. 

xoxox

He should have known Sirius would find him here, too. Wormtail had barely gotten a day’s rest when the man stormed in, madness in his eyes. “You’re selling me that rat,” he announced, talking over the lady’s protests. “Now. _Confundus_.”

Great big hands reached out and grasped him. Wormtail wet himself in fright. 

“I’ve got you now, _you rat_ ,” Sirius spat. “You’re going to wish your mother never birthed you.”

“E-Excuse me,” the shopkeeper said, “what’s _wrong_ with you?”

“ _Obliviate_ ,” Sirius snarled, then they were disapparating. 

Wormtail bit the hand holding him when they landed, transforming even as Sirius dropped him on the ground. He splashed into a puddle, quickly righting himself and drawing his wand. Had Sirius taken them _outside_ the Leaky Cauldron? There were muggles here—

“ _Expelliarmus_ ,” Sirius snarled. “ _Levicorpus. Sectumsempra. Crucio._ ” 

Peter ducked, scrabbling backwards. “Sirius, please—” This was it, he was going to die. He thought of his mother, how she had died at the bottom of the stairs with nothing but fairy lights to keep her company.

A _Bombarda_ ripped past. Suddenly heat flared behind him, singeing his rain-damp hair. The sound was deafening. Pain bloomed, as though his wand had exploded in his hand.

Peter cried out. He wished he were dead, wished things were simpler, wished to feel anything but the burning. He let himself shrink, his vision narrowing. He could smell a storm drain, ripe with leaves and litter. Wormtail dove in.

His ears were still ringing. His pulse was racing. The water rushed around him, _sink or swim?_ The sound of Sirius’ mad laughter echoed loudest of all.

Peter’s mother had told him bedtime stories about London’s ancient sewer system, stories of snakes and crocodiles. Yet it was the water itself which was going to kill him now, battering him around like…like a small, lonely rodent in a very strong current. 

He wasn’t ready to die. Wormtail transformed back into Peter, suddenly able to stand waist-deep in the muddy water. 

The air was the sweetest he had breathed in all twenty years of his life.

He pulled himself onto a narrow ledge and took stock: he was wet and shivering, half his hair had been singed off, and one of his shoes was gone. All that was left of his wand was a splinter lodged deep in his left hand. He was missing an entire finger. His friends hated him, Voldemort had killed James and Lily, he’d lost everyone and everything he’d ever cared about.

And fuck, _it hurt_. He cried as he tugged the splinter out and wrapped his shirt around what was left of his hand. Peter cradled it to his chest, perched on a stone ledge in a storm drain. He listened to the water rush by and heard Sirius’ ringing laughter.

He should have just died. Anything would be better than this—even nothing at all.

His sobs echoed around him until they calmed to snivelling, and finally, restless snores.

xoxox

It took two days for the bleeding to stop. By then, the gripping pain of infection convinced Peter to leave his storm drain for the world above.

He didn’t have to make it far. The muggle healers picked him up in a small bus that screamed with blue lights. They must have given him something for the pain, too, because the sharp _all-encompassing_ changed to a terrible throbbing. His thoughts didn’t get any clearer, though. 

It looked like the bobbies’ hats were dancing. Peter reached out, wondering if they were as hard as they looked.

The hole in his hand got patched up. They gave him food and a change of clothes. And the next day they returned with round faces and sharp questions.

“No, it was an accident, I swear it was an accident. Please, I don’t want to press charges. I don’t want to make a statement. Please—”

The bobbies left him alone after a while. Peter's nurses stopped letting him have the painkillers, but it wasn’t so bad anymore. He couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be hurt, or scared, or running.

In the middle of the day, when nobody was paying attention, Peter crept away while thanking every god, faerie, and lucky star for the NHS.

He spent the next four weeks visiting each _Pet Palace_ in the East and West Midlands on foot until he found the kind lady with the gentle hands, and the Deathly Hallows perched on the top shelf of her supplies closet. 

He spent exactly two days tracking down Harry Potter. ‘Safe in the muggle world,’ Dumbledore’s arse; Lily’s sister had married Vernon Dursley. _Dursley_ was listed in the bloody phone book. 

The rest of it was rather more...complicated.

xoxox

The first time Peter approached Surrey, he was suddenly on an urgent mission to the Leaky Cauldron, desperate to catch up on the news. 

_SIRIUS BLACK IN AZKABAN_ the headline read. Peter scowled to himself, ignoring how his insides wriggled like trapped calamari. 

He’d made a vow to return Harry’s cloak and he wasn’t going to let some distraction ward stop him.

The second time he tried a sneakier approach. He walked in circles around the address with a map, figuring out the protection's boundaries by trial and error. He found out where Mr. Dursley worked and found a market where Mrs. Dursley shopped. Then he waited. 

And waited. 

And waited.

Petunia Dursley didn't visit that market again.

…

The third time Peter approached Surrey he was alarmed to realise the edges of the wards had shrunken back drastically. When he'd previously been unable to reach the neighbouring streets, he made it all the way to Wisteria Walk this time—only to be swarmed by Kneazles. 

Peter _hated_ kneazles. It took his knees an hour to stop wobbling. 

On Harry’s second birthday, all of Peter's waiting finally paid off. Petunia left a napping Harry in the car, promising him she’d be right back. Leading her own son by his pudgy hand, she went briskly into the shops.

Peter approached quickly, knowing he wouldn’t have long. Harry was scowling in his sleep, strapped in a child’s seat, and tucked under a light woollen blanket. How could they not know Harry hated wool?

“Hullo," Peter greeted gently, only for the boy to start wailing. "Shhh, shhh,” he soothed through the cracked window. “It’s alright Harry. Please stop crying?”

Harry cut off abruptly, staring at Peter’s nose the same way he always had with his bright, bright eyes. Peter ducked his head down to meet them, but Harry’s seemed to look right through him—under his skin. The judgement of a toddler was an odd and uncomfortable sensation.

It was all the more unnerving that Harry didn’t say anything. Peter shuddered, chilled despite the warm July drizzle. “I’m so sorry, Harry,” he whispered, then glanced around furtively. At least the boy wasn't crying.

“Get _away_ from my car!”

Peter startled so hard the cloak almost slipped from his hands. He ducked, covering himself with it and rolling beneath the neighbouring van. 

Petunia got in her car and drove away so fast she almost backed into a lamppost.

xoxox

The next time Peter approached number four, Privet Drive, he made it all the way to the garden gate. Stunned, he plopped down to sit on the low wall marking the property line. He’d never seen wards so strong deteriorate so quickly; it filled him with worry. 

_It wasn’t safe. Harry wasn’t safe. He had to protect Harry._

With a start, he felt the wards touch him with a curious tendril of magic. _He’s not safe_ , Peter tried to project. _Can’t you see? Anyone could come here._

For a moment Peter felt like he was falling backwards off a rocking chair. He closed his eyes on instinct.

When he opened them he was inside the wards.

“Huh,” he said to himself. Tucking his things under the hedgerow, Peter shrunk into Wormtail and headed into the house.

xoxox

Peter had always liked muggles. They were fascinating, the way they scuttled about their ordinary lives doing all the same things, just in strangely unmagical ways. It had always seemed so miraculous how much they managed to do without a lick of magic.

Lily had indulged him often when the others were off marauding. She’d been patient and kind, showing him _the underground_ and _the television_ and _the toaster_. Everything had been delightful, fascinating, innovative.

The Dursleys, on the other hand, were completely, utterly, totally _normal_. They lacked every creative instinct, choosing instead to live like drones, or ants.

Mr. Dursley had an unimaginative job. Mrs. Dursley was a mundane housewife. Dudley Dursley was a dull child, though 'Dudley Dursley's Desserts' would have made an excellent name for a bakery down Diagon.

Harry had never been normal. He fit into the family like a wooden block with a jigsaw puzzle. Or a grapefruit and a jigsaw puzzle. Or anything but a puzzle piece, really.

It was obvious Petunia tried. She fed her son, then cleaned up the mess that Harry had tossed to the floor. She washed and changed them, entirely perplexed when Harry screamed at the sensation of running water on his skin. She cooed and sweet-talked both children, delighting in her son’s animated responses while staring forlornly at her nephew’s refusal to communicate by anything other than wails.

She cooked, she cleaned, and every night she went to bed exhausted.

But not before tucking Dudley into his bed, and tucking Harry into a crib. In the cupboard. _Under the stairs._

It took less than a day of watching for Peter to understand why the wards had let him in: things were very much _not alright_.

A week after Harry’s second birthday a rat crawled into Harry’s cupboard. It promptly turned into a man and let fairy lights dance off the tips of his nine fingers. 

For the first time since Halloween, everyone at Privet Drive slept through the night.

Well, everybody except the rat.

xoxox

Harry became calmer after that. He’d eventually learn to use the loo, how to feed himself, how to look _almost_ at Petunia’s face when she talked to him.

He didn’t speak until his third Halloween. “Be good Harry,” he parroted, voice soft. “Look at me.” And while Dudley would say things like _yes, no, give me, mine_ or _look mummy, a car like daddy's!_ , Harry would stare at his cupboard, grasping towards nothing and saying, “My Ratty!” 

Petunia only wrung her hands helplessly, at a loss for how to reach him at all.


	5. In this valley of dying stars

I've combined a few chapters, sorry if it causes confusion. People have commented they prefer when ffnet and ao3 match (which makes a lot more sense than what I was doing before). It also means you're getting twice the usual update length—logically, I would like twice the usual length of reviews.

xoxox

Petunia sent Dudley to Reception come September when the children were five, but she kept Harry at home with her. 

“I don’t know why you’re coddling the boy,” Peter heard them arguing deep into the night. “He needs to toughen up and scrap with the lads.”

“They won’t understand him at school. What if he spends the day screaming? I’d be mortified,” Petunia countered.

“Of course they won’t understand him, he’s a freak.”

Peter could almost hear the way Petunia pursed her lips. “I thought you’d be pleased with us putting some distance between the boys. Dudley will make his own friends without Harry bothering him.” Her arguments were sound, but her voice gave her away. It was too careful. Too pleading.

As usual it was Vernon who had the last word. “I don’t want Dudley getting jealous. And people will talk, can’t have that.”

On October first, clutching his toy rat with its well-chewed tail in one hand and his aunt’s dress in the other, Harry Potter entered the school system. Contrary to expectations, he did not spend the day wailing, though he did sit in the corner rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until it was time to go home.

The  _ special  _ teachers came with November, consisting of someone saying  _ Look at me Harry _ ,  _ pay attention Harry, I need you to look at me Harry _ . Peter supervised from his hiding place in the corner, knowing they didn’t stand a chance—the boy was entirely fascinated by the autumn leaves.

Besides those few supervisory sessions Peter would wait at home, gnawing on his fingernails or shredding tissues as it suited him. He fiddled with the broom and the duster and the kitchen sink, enchanting them to siphon magic off Harry and use it to help Petunia with the cleaning. It meant Harry had fewer accidents and Petunia was less exhausted, which helped them grow closer. And in turn, Peter watched the ward line grow outward again, easily identifiable by the way it kept those pesky kneazles away.

Meanwhile, every day after school, he would follow Petunia to pick the boys up, his nose twitching happily at Harry’s shrieked “Ratty!” It was unerring how the boy could always find Wormtail crouching under the nearest hedgerow.

December brought Christmas decorations, which was lovely—and knitwear, which Harry was entirely unenthused about. The boy transfigured a sweater to straw by accident when Petunia ignored his insistent screaming, but she seemed to finally catch on after that.

Dudley brought home the cut-out snowflakes he'd made at school. Harry brought home fragmented tales about the falling rain and how they'd tried to explain the colours of the rainbow to him. 

The connection between rain and rainbows didn’t make sense, Harry told Peter earnestly, because clouds were grey and blue and black, nothing ROYGBIV about them. Peter sat in the comfort of their cupboard, listening intently to James and Lily’s son as the boy coloured his homework exactly the way he thought things should be and not at all like the teachers would want. The fairy lights danced around them like so many twinkling stars.

At night Peter shaped them into his favourite constellations as he counted off their tales like bedtime stories:  _ Canis major, forever chasing the rodent Lepus. Orion, who fell to pride. Lupus, impaled on the centaur’s spear. Aries, sacrificed to the gods, bearing the golden fleece which saved the prince’s life. _

It delighted him to see Harry's eyes sparkle with interest before finally falling closed.

Peter’s Mam had always said he’d been born under a lucky star, but none of the stars’ tales ever struck him as being particularly lucky. Perhaps his fate was to make Harry's life better from the shadows.

After all, wasn't it better to be a nonentity? Someone relegated to the forgotten parts of the history books—someone small and inconspicuous, watching from the edges—like a rat.

Meanwhile, in the farthest corner of the cupboard under the stairs, three Hallows sat, waiting.

xoxox

Peter spent that Christmas just like the last, perched in Harry's baggy pockets and nibbling on Petunia's excellent baking. He renewed last year's enchantment that made the household toilets self-cleaning as an anonymous Christmas gift, and praised Harry for not having a single screaming fit all day. 

The wards grew to cover half of Little Whinging. 

January brought icy roads, slippery pavements and the firm insistence Harry must hold Petunia’s hand and wear a hat to and from school. It had been two weeks, but the boy was still determined to scream at the injustice of it all. Dudley was pouting and Petunia looked like she was wishing for the ground to open up and swallow her whole. 

Peter was the only one who saw it, everyone else was too enraptured by the delights of the latest Dursley family scandal. Time did not slow down, nor did it speed up. There was no moment of monumental importance. There was just the car in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Peter in the right place at the right time to step in front of it. 

Harry screamed “ _ Ratty! _ ” while darting out of Petunia’s reach. The car kept skidding.

Peter’s last thought was,  _ No, not Harry, please, not Harry _ .

There was something in the nothing that followed. It echoed oddly. YOU CAN GO BACK, IF YOU WANT, a voice said.

Peter wasn’t thinking anymore, stuck in a loop of,  _ Please, not Harry. Let me go back. I need to get to Harry. _

VERY WELL.

He blinked his eyes open. They had crusted shut, but he couldn't properly move his hands to wipe at them. 

_ There was something inside his hand _ . Panic welled up inside him, hot and desperate—but it was like there was a wall between him and his emotions, and he couldn't feel it properly at all. He let it simmer, his mind drifting. Was this what occlumency felt like? It was kind of neat, and kind of terrifying. 

He was lying on a scratchy bed with awful sheets in a room that was too bright. Someone had painted cheerful polka dots on the walls. The dots were drifting about like clouds, or sheep, so Peter propped himself up and started counting them. His earlier panic evaporated. He realised he was feeling rather dizzy, and also very small. Suddenly the walls stopped moving.

There was something tucked into bed beside him. It was a stuffed toy rat just like Harry’s, albeit brand new and completely unchewed.

Peter's head hurt. The lights were too much, it was all too much. He started rocking quietly, his toy clutched to his chest. The motion made him feel inexplicably better.

Someone came in then. “Here, Harry, you must drink this,” a gentle voice said, pressing a potion vial to his lips, then another, then another. “See? All better.”

He felt the magic of a diagnostic dancing over him, then a hand running through his hair. “Take care, Harry.”

By the time Peter managed to turn his eyes all the way up to the mysterious healer, he was gone. Where was Harry? What had happened?

Muggles rushed in then: first muggle healers, followed by some of Harry’s muggle teachers, and finally Harry’s muggle aunt.

“Look at me, Harry,” they said gently. “How are you feeling?”

“...as if he died and came back to life. It’s a miracle,” someone was muttering.

“Almost like magic,” Petunia confirmed dryly. “Can I take Harry home now?”

They fluttered on about  _ imaging  _ and  _ test results  _ and  _ observation _ , but Petunia was insistent. Nobody seemed to expect Peter to contribute anything. It was all very loud and bustling.

That night Peter Pettigrew sat in Harry's body in Harry’s bed, watching fairy lights dance across his fingertips. 

This hadn’t been what he’d meant when he’d said he wanted to  _ go back _ . He had needed to return to Harry to help him, to save him, who else would look after the boy and his special needs? There were no portraits here to explain to Petunia what Harry liked to eat and what he liked to wear, the proper way to arrange food on his plate and the way he needed things to be or else he'd scream, and wail, and cry.

Peter had been taking such good care of Harry, he'd been keeping his promise to protect him. He'd meant to die for Harry, he'd been ready to greet Death so long as Harry would live.

His mind whirled around the line he hadn't been meant to overhear in the hospital.  _ It's like he died and came back to life. _

He knew Harry had been killed by that car too, the certainty sounded in his head like a child at a drumset. Had Death stood before the child and asked him if  _ he  _ wanted to go back?

The boy must have been so scared and alone, nothing but a chewed toy rat to keep him company.

Emotions welled up in Peter, it felt like his organs were being crushed by his own scattered heart. He had failed.

He hugged himself and rocked, but it did nothing to stop the way he was falling apart.

What had he done,  _ what had he done? _

Harry was gone, nothing left of him but his body and his legacy.

What was the point? What was the point of any of this?

For the first night since Harry’s second birthday, the Dursley household was kept up by a little boy's keening.

xoxox

The next days dragged by impossibly slowly. His body was completely healed, the potions had taken care of that. Whoever's magic had grafted him to Harry had done a good job, too. ( _ Death _ , Peter's mind provided helpfully.  _ It was Death's magic _ .) Peter moved through Harry's daily life with a kind of perverse familiarity, knowledgeable of his routines, his special teachers—he even found himself taking on Harry's idiosyncrasies entirely against his will. 

It was inexplicably hard to meet people's eyes. 

His foods had to be eaten in order and sorted by colour. 

Suddenly he understood how easy it was to be distracted by rain, snow or falling leaves.

Every morning when he woke up to Petunia's knocking it felt like an alarm spell on snooze. He cycled through the day's preparations with half his mind convinced he was still asleep, nesting in warm blankets and shredded newspapers.

Then he'd be woken anew by the rap-rap-rap ' _ Are you up Harry?' _ —only to realise he'd gone a whole day without really waking at all.

Nobody seemed to expect much interaction or conversation from him, thankfully. They were all resigned to him rocking or crying or generally failing to hold himself together. 

Peter was never more grateful for the cupboard than in those first weeks. He could sit safely in the dark while listening to Dudley watch the telly or Petunia bustle about the kitchen. And at night the Dursleys were far enough away not to hear him tossing, turning, and falling apart.

He thought it terribly astute that Petunia had figured all of this out back when Harry was barely a year old, when she hadn't known what he liked to eat or the way he hated the colour orange.

After that fateful January morning, Petunia never dressed Harry in wool again.

xoxox

It didn't take long for Peter to grow to  _ loathe  _ Harry's  _ special teachers _ . They were always going on about things that didn't interest him, like the names of colours or shapes, or how to read and count. He couldn't tell them he already knew all that, but anyway they were hardly expecting him to answer them. 

Why, then, did they insist on annoying him with their questions? Besides, even if he wanted to read their stupid stories, the room was so…full. There were loud posters pinned on all the walls, writing on the chalkboard, dust clogging up the air. The only calm in the room was the peeling paint on the ceiling, and the only thing really interesting was the view through the window at the clouds twisting and curling outside.

So no, he did not want to _ look at them _ . 

It was Thursday, which meant he had to see his  _ special counsellor  _ after lunch. She usually wore her hair in a stern bun not unlike McGonagall's, except today it was lopsided. Peter already hated her worst of all, but the hair was truly unforgivable.

“Can you tell me what happened, Harry?” she was asking for the fiftieth time. 

He looked at her. Forced himself to see not the hair, or the glasses, or the stain on her collar. Couldn't she afford to visit the dry cleaner's? 

He looked her in the eyes. “Harry died.” Slowly, lest he choke on it, Peter let out the breath all caught up in his chest. “Ratty died too.”

“You knew that man? He was called Ratty?”

"Your hair," Peter told her, letting himself look away. "It's asymmetrical. You should fix it."

She made a small sound of surprise, but Peter had already moved on to examining the wallpaper.

"Do you know what that means Harry? A-sy-mmet-ric-al?"

_ Of course he knew what it meant, he'd just said it. Why wasn't she doing up her hair? _ He stared past her. Every Thursday he found more patterns in the bumpy wallpaper, familiar constellations in this strange, foreign life. One of them looked like Canis Major—he could see Lupus. 

And there was Orion, shot to death and pinned up where he didn’t belong.

When Petunia picked him up from school that day, they spoke to her about  _ verbalising _ and  _ progress _ . Peter wondered if they realised how dehumanising it was for them to talk about him as if he weren't right there. 

He should really be used to it by now. First as Peter, then as Wormtail, and now as Harry. A part of him wondered if anybody would ever truly  _ see him _ .

_ Look at me _ , he wanted to say, but he didn't.

At least the stupid woman had finally fixed her hair.

xoxox

"What can you tell me about Ratty?" the woman with the severe bun opened their next session.

As far as conversations went, Peter considered this an improvement. Usually they started with a bunch of boring questions like  _ How are you feeling today? _ and  _ Can you tell me what you learnt this week? _ which he'd answer with stubborn silence.

"Ratty died too," he repeated. It hadn't been anything like he'd expected his own end to happen. "I had thought dying would be different."

Should he be using subjunctives? Harry hadn't talked much, but Peter had always thought the boy exceptionally clever and perfectly able to keep up. He'd just never really wanted to say anything, and now that Peter was  _ inside _ Harry he could see the appeal.

The teacher had finally caught herself, jaw closing with a resounding click. "Do you know Ratty's name, Harry? Look at me, it's important."

Peter stared past her, thinking.  _ Should he tell her? _ Cassiopeia stared back at him from the wall.  _ Had he really ever been important?  _ The thought had him laughing. Peter was many things, but he'd never been vain. 

The strange, grating sound of his laughter had startled the woman again. It was time, Peter decided, to put her out of her misery. "He's dead. His name doesn't matter now. None of it matters." 

Peter wanted to take it back immediately, but on the other hand he couldn't really be bothered. It was an alien feeling to begin by saying one thing and end up spilling words that meant something else entirely. The only worse thing was that he knew he wasn't lying. "What's the point? I died. Harry's gone."

The truth of it crushed him like an anvil from one of Dudley's favourite cartoons. There was a smashed grand piano sitting on his chest and even if he opened his mouth it'd only be the sound of broken chords falling out. 

Peter felt like he was in a tumble-dryer, spun dizzy and wrung out. He realised with a start that he'd died long before that January morning. Had the end started when he'd betrayed the Potters' Secret to the Dark Lord? Before that even, when he'd agreed to become their Secret Keeper despite knowing he'd end up letting them down? Had his death begun with the last day at Hogwarts, when three Gryffindors had gone off to live, uncaring that they were leaving him behind?

Dying to save Harry had been the one good thing he'd done in his life, and hadn't even managed to do that properly.  _ Merlin _ , he was such a failure, had he ever really lived at all?

For a short moment Peter was aware enough of Harry's body to lean over and vomit before he was rocking again, back and forth, back and forth, all that movement going nowhere.

He could feel himself spinning, and spinning, like that time Petunia had put the plush Ratty in the washing machine. 

Peter passed out.

xoxox

Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell reddit and the world if you like this. But most of all, please tell me in your review.  
I've churned out 30k words of Peter's story for NaNoWriMo (personally re-branded to _International Fanfic Writing Month_ ), and it is at once a great source of joy, and a very challenging story with many voices to juggle.


	6. This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

Peter woke up feeling sore. Not sore like _ran around the forest all night_ _with a werewolf_ , not sore like _hit by a stray curse when Snivellus and Sirius duelled_. Instead, it was what Peter imagined being pummeled to death by the Whomping Willow might feel like, except at least that would at some point have been over.

He opened his eyes to bright, bright walls painted with more stupid polka dots. He could feel there was something inside his arm again. These muggles with their barbaric muggle medicines, putting  _ tubes _ and  _ needles _ inside people! Peter peeled aside the tape and yanked it out.

Bloody buggering  _ fuck  _ it hurt. And it was bleeding. Oh gods, he was bleeding, what if someone took his blood and performed a binding ritual with it or something—

—oh, but muggles didn't have binding rituals.

Someone came in then, shouting as if it wasn't already loud enough in this stupid room—

At this point Peter realised he had been yelling for an indeterminate period of time.

The muggle healer was doing something, touching him,  _ Harry hated being touched _ , and then Peter realised he should have been doing more breathing and less screaming.

Breathing was a lot harder than most people made it look.

The polka dots were still moving, growing bigger and bigger until they took up the whole room.

He blinked. Then, everything went black.

xoxox

When Peter woke to more polka dots he felt like he could cry. He watched them skitter across the walls like cockroaches, they reminded him of detentions spent turning the compost heaps in the greenhouses. He tried to wipe the sweat off his face.

This was when Peter realised he couldn't move his hands. He tore his gaze from the walls, blinking dizzily. It felt like the bed was lurching even though he knew it shouldn't be. Boats lurched and rocked, but beds were supposed to be still.

He found his hands by following the strange muggle tubing with his eyes. The plastic was all shiny in the too-bright light. Peter wriggled his fingers, watching them. Again, he tried to wipe the sweat off his face.

His hands were cuffed to the sides of the bed.

Peter screamed.

Strange people came in and tried to talk to him. He knew they were talking because he could see their lips moving and their arms waving about in frantic gestures. 

But none of the words were reaching his ears. He could hear only himself: his rattling lungs, his staccato heart, and the screaming, gods, why wouldn't he stop screaming?

And then, suddenly, he calmed. It felt like his limbs were made of honey and the air around him was so heavy and soft.

No, that wasn't right. It was the air that was viscous like honey, and his limbs felt heavy and soft. He blinked, trying to hear what these strange people were saying, but they were speaking so quickly. It was alright, though. Peter was well-accustomed to not being able to keep up. The walls were dancing; it looked so funny that he laughed.

The people stopped trying to talk to him then. A familiar lady came in, her hair all crisp like a bobby's helmet. Peter reached out to touch it but he was still tied to the bed. She reminded him of McGonagall.

"Looook aatt meee," she was saying. She was holding something up, was it a rabbit?

Oh, Peter recognised this dream. He was supposed to transfigure the bunny into a pair of slippers. McGonagall was watching him sternly, all dissatisfied. Peter didn't want to disappoint her too.

He pulled at his magic and forced it into his wand—where was his wand?—and cast the spell.

McGonagall's hair turned blue. 

Peter had failed. His vision blurred with his tears.

"Drink this Harry," someone murmured, tilting a vial of something slimy and truly disgusting into his mouth. "Swallow it all, there's a good boy."

Peter giggled, then did as he was told. 

He opened his eyes to see his special teacher still sitting before him, presenting him with his plush Ratty. Her hair was all grey again. He had no idea what she wanted from him. Was he supposed to take Ratty? He was tied to the stupid bed.

The polka dots on the walls had stopped moving. 

Ratty was pressed into Harry's hand—he sagged with relief. Somehow, it was easier to breathe now. "Thank you," he whispered. 

"You're welcome," said not-McGonagall. "Will you be good now?"

She helped him sit up, unbuckling his wrists from the bed, but insisted he leave the tube inside his arm for now. Peter humoured her, quite happy to assemble and unassemble the puzzle on the tray before him. Ratty nestled beside him, keeping them safe.

Aunt Petunia came at some point and he made sure to look at her, to say "Hello," and "Please," and "Thank you." He wasn't sure why, but it seemed awfully important.

Later, a muggle healer came in. She gave him some sleeping potion while talking to Aunt Petunia and not-McGonagall as if he weren't right there, but Peter was used to that. He was too tired to protest to his wrists being buckled back in again.

Muggles didn't have Dreamless Sleep; Harry spent the night sweating through a series of nightmares. There was a man with skin that looked like it had been scraped off hot milk. The monster didn't say anything, he'd just laugh and laugh and laugh while Peter stumbled across a giant chessboard. There was a black dog figurine chasing him and no matter how fast Harry ran he couldn't move from the square grey tile that had melted around his feet.

The next days were slow. Peter kept Ratty held tight against his chest. The muggles removed the tube from his arm and shepherded him from one activity to the next. Breakfast, puzzles, lessons, lunch, drawing, walking outside, dinner. Petunia would visit, and he made sure to look at her as best he could, making his eyes wide and pleading in the hopes she'd take him home.

They had stopped tying Harry to the bed at night. 

The ubiquitous polka dots haunted his dreams, floating around in a mockery of fairy lights as he watched his dead mother sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, red hair spilling across the floor while a great bat held her and wept.

On some level, Peter was aware of other children in the hospital with him, in the same way he was aware of the inedible food, and the monotony of the only three puzzles they had there. Mostly he noticed the brown leaves on the potted plants, the way the beds weren't properly lined up with the eklektricity sockets, and the fact the boy in the bed beside him was three times bigger than him and breathed through his mouth in a way that was utterly  _ infuriating. _

"Why am I here?" he asked not-McGonagall on Thursday. It was strange how she came to see him every day now; he was only really comfortable speaking to her on Thursdays.

"You had a fit and we were all very worried you might hurt yourself," she explained. Nowadays she seemed to make sure her hair was properly in place before meeting with Harry, and he appreciated that.

Harry looked at her. "If I promise to be good, can I go home?" There was something echoing in the back of his head about subjunctives and conditionals.  _ What's a conditional _ , he asked the echo, but it didn't answer.

He made himself listen to what not-McGonagall was saying. 

That wasn't true. He made himself look like he was listening to what not-McGonagall was saying. "Please can I go home?" he repeated once she'd stopped talking.

To his profound relief, she was smiling.

Petunia picked him up on Saturday morning, Dudley in tow. "They said at school that you're loony and that's why they put you in the loony bin," Dudley explained on the way down to the ground floor. "Mum says you're not loony, but they put you in the loony bin anyway."

There was an elderly couple in the lift with them. The woman had turned away and the man was scowling at their mismatched family.

"That's enough, Dudley," Aunt Petunia said. "Don't say things like that."

Petunia sounded tired, Harry realised suddenly. "I promise I'll be good, please can I go home?" People had liked when he'd said that in the past, so it seemed prudent to make sure.

"Come along, boys." 

Peter let her hold his hand and followed along without fussing. He was working on being better at keeping his promises.

xoxox

Everything felt disjointed. There were moments when he didn't even know what  _ disjointed _ meant but he knew it was the right word, the same way Harry knew the man with the milk-skin was bad and that Aunt Petunia was tired.

Time had bloomed into April, marked by Dudley's run around the garden hunting chocolate eggs. Peter had followed after he was done, meticulously finding the ones Dudley had missed. 

He knew it was Thursday only because he was sitting in the Thursday room with not-McGonagall. 

"How are you feeling today Harry? Can you tell me what you learnt this week?" she asked.

"I don't know who I am," Peter answered. "Harry died and Ratty died. I don't understand."

Not-McGonagall had gotten better at answering his existential questions. "Have you heard of phoenixes, Harry? When they die they burn up and are born again from the ashes."

_ That doesn't make any sense _ , Harry thought.  _ Also, what's a Fawkes? _

_ Fawkes is a phoenix, and the phoenix is a metaphor _ , the echo in his head explained.

"Am I an echo?" he asked, still confused.

Not-McGonagall was smiling. "I don't know who you are, Harry. Only you can determine that."

That didn't make any sense either, but Harry nodded anyway. He went back to looking for constellations in the wallpaper and found Pyxis next to Vela. It would have been easier if they'd both sailed off to the underworld, he couldn't help but think. His mum was there waiting for him—he pictured her perched on the cerberus' heads, one mum with green eyes and greying hair, the other blue-eyed and blooming with red life.

After school that day Harry watched Aunt Petunia hanging the laundry in the back garden. Mrs Number Six had hung up hers too, but the clothes looked strange, all blotchy and pink. 

"Why?" Harry asked his aunt, entranced by a mottled t-shirt snapping in the wind.

"That's what happens when you don't separate your colours properly," Petunia explained. "It all blends unevenly. A single red sock can ruin everything." She sniffed, basket cocked against her hip. "And don't ask questions."

Harry marveled at the idea, staying outside to think on it. He certainly felt muddled, but was he the t-shirt or the sock? 

After dinner he climbed over the fence and wished very hard for the shirt until it was suddenly clutched safely in his hands. Feeling inordinately proud, he hid his prize in his nest of covers under the stairs.

He'd forgotten Petunia vacuumed his cupboard with the rest of the house. She held his hand too tight as she rang the doorbell of number six, Privet Drive. 

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered at Mrs Number Six's shoes, fingers reluctantly uncurling from the shirt.

"Why did you take it?" the woman asked, though she didn't seem half as mad as Aunt Petunia was.

"It's not ruined," Harry answered honestly. "It's beautiful."

Mrs Number Six laughed and pressed the shirt back into Harry's hand. "You could have asked, boy. I don't mind. Keep it."

Harry deposited his prize back in his nest feeling warm with contentment. Aunt Petunia scowled at him, but he didn't understand what he'd done to upset her.

_ Stealing is wrong _ , his mind echoed.  _ You could have asked. _

"Don't ask questions," Harry parroted back. 

Petunia smiled at him then, though Harry couldn't read the wonder from her eyes. "Have you really been listening, Harry?"

"Not always," he admitted.

"If you're a good boy you can ask for things," Aunt Petunia said, and that was that.

xoxox

Peter tested the hypothesis the following Thursday. It was strange, because Dudley went around saying  _ I want _ twenty times a day, but it had never occured to Peter that he could say it too.

"I want to see the stars," he announced. 

"Tell me what you learnt today," not-McGonagall insisted.

"A-for-Apple, B-for-Ball, Jesus is the seventh letter of the alphabet," Harry said. "I want to see the stars."

"Almost," the woman agreed. "You keep trying and I'll see what I can do." 

xoxox

Every night he'd dream stories of the deer-man, the dog-man and the wolf-man. He'd dream of being left behind, of feeling small and alone. But during the day Harry's teachers would give him books with pictures of the night sky in them, and those stories he could remember all on his own.

Taurus, the bull whose sacrifice marked the return of better times. Lupus, half man half beast, seemingly always a moment from death. Sirius, the dog star whose bright twinkling heralded trouble. Lepus, running, running, running from Orion's dogs.

And Aion, God of the Zodiac and the ages, who watched over them all. 

_ Everything is vulnerable to time _ , the echoes agreed. Harry thought of pink t-shirts fading in the wash and knew he didn't want it any other way.

xoxox

One day when Harry was eight, Petunia made him move his things out of his cupboard. "Big boys need space to grow," she said.

This seemed like poor reasoning to Harry. If he was already big he wouldn't need to keep growing. And if he was small, then he could still fit in the cupboard just fine.

But he knew Petunia wasn't a woman of logic, she was a woman of  _ metaphor _ . So Harry dutifully gathered his blankets and carried them to his new room with the window overlooking the back garden. 

He had Dudley's old bed, with a nice dip already worn into the middle of the mattress. Harry arranged his blankets around himself into a perfect nest. If he sat up he could see Number Six's washing lines. Really, it was almost nice having a room all to himself.

Harry had been wrong. 

He  _ hated _ the room. It was close enough to the Dursleys that he could hear them snoring at night. The window always let in the light from Number Two's terrible choice in lawn ornaments. A different couple had moved into Number Six and they didn't hang their laundry the right way. Instead the man put the pegs on all haphazard-like, uncaring that it was wrong and made everything all wrinkly.

At first Aunt Petunia pretended not to notice when Harry kept crawling back into his cupboard every night. She made not-McGonagall explain to him that change could be a good thing, and talked about stars in his window like she knew nothing of light pollution.

It was awful. For a while Harry felt he was hardly sleeping at all.

Aunt Petunia's next tactic was to buy him blackout curtains and a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars. Harry convinced Dudley to help him carry the old mattress out of the cupboard so he could prop it against the wall next to his bed-nest. 

Then, when all of his belongings were moved from the cupboard, Harry crawled to the very back where he pried aside the panelling behind a shelf.

He pulled out the cloak, the ring, the wand.

These were the Hallows. He remembered them like he remembered casting fairy lights, like he remembered his mother's body lying splayed out across carpeted floors.

Harry deposited them under a loose floorboard in his new room, but they wouldn't let him forget about them again. From the moment he'd touched them they haunted his dreams, always whispering and murmuring like a haunted lullaby.

He remembered how his Mam used to say he'd been born under a lucky star, and he really hoped that it was true. At night he'd stare up at his glow-in-the-dark rendition of Scorpio, wondering if it'd be enough to protect him.

In the corner under the floorboards, three Hallows sat, waiting.

xoxox

Life has been crazy busy, hence I forgot to update earlier. Take care, my lovely fellow humans. Be kind, be safe, happy holidays.


	7. Here we go round the prickly pear

“Harry always ruins everything,” Dudley faux-wailed on the morning of his eleventh birthday. 

Harry nodded at his shoes. The boy had a point, after all. He resigned himself to another day in Mrs Figg's house, flinching away from her kneazles and waiting for her to take a nap so that he could get at the _good_ books on her shelves.

Fate, it seemed, had other ideas. "Arabella's ill, broke her leg," Vernon announced, slamming the phone down with more force than necessary. "Can't we leave him in his room? It's not like he notices us anyway."

This seemed extremely unfair, but Harry was used to things being unfair so he said nothing. He cut his squares of toast into triangles, then halved them again.

"Of course he'll notice," Aunt Petunia said. "Besides, we can't possibly leave him alone, anything could happen." She turned to her son then, giving him a _Stern Look_. “Take a deep breath and let’s see if we can’t make your day extra special, alright Dudders?”

Either the _Stern Look_ or her words sufficed; a mollified Dudley wiped the faux-snot off his face. Peter had a new _special teacher_ this year, and she'd promised to help him learn how to do a _Stern Look_ , too. With any luck it'd give him the power to make Dudley back off so he could eat his breakfast in peace. 

Thankfully the doorbell rang then, saving them from further debate. 

Harry stacked his miniature toast triangles before slipping them into his pocket. They'd make a good snack for later.

xoxox

The zoo was loud, smelly, and sunny, causing sweat to itch unbearably against his skin. It was also full of animals, which was neat. Harry loved animals, though not as much as he loved stars. There weren't any bulls or wolves, but the reptile houses made up for it with spiders, scorpions and snakes. _Reptile house_ was a bit of a misnomer—perhaps it was another metaphor?

While they walked through the loud crowds full of sweaty people and screaming children, Harry made sure to keep his eyes glued to the back of Aunt Petunia's shoes, trying very hard not to cause a scene. He pictured the procedure of removing his eyeballs and wondered if school glue would be strong enough to attach them to leather shoes. He'd been reading about van-der-waals forces in class the other day, and made a mental note to look up _cohesion_ again later.

Later, when he got back to Privet Drive, or back to school, or just out of this zoo with its people, there were so many people, weren't zoos meant to be for animals? Harry wanted to go home.

 _This was Dudley's special day._ Harry had promised to be good. He kneaded his arm and took deep breaths.

After lunch Petunia let him spend the rest of the day in the cool, dark reptile house with a stern command to _Stay_. Some days, Harry felt like he was the Dursleys' dog, except that he didn't shed or dig up the garden. He sat himself before a tank of colourful fish until Petunia picked him up at the end of their zoo trip. 

When they finally got home she gave him an ice lolly and granted him a rare smile. “Thank you. I know that was hard for you.”

Peter made his lips smile back and wondered if he could ask for a pet scorpion, just in case Orion and his hunting dogs ever came back.

xoxox

The click of the mail slot was audible even against the background of the Dursleys’ incessant chewing. Harry was still sorting his foods by colour; he’d made sure to burn his bacon so that it coordinated better with the burnt toast. 

“Get the mail, Dudley,” Vernon ordered. 

Harry followed the sounds easily. Every second step was punctuated by the rap of the Smelting stick against the wall, then the banister, and finally the door. Dudley was still chewing his mouthful of breakfast as he returned, dumping the letters on Vernon’s lap. 

“Bills, letter from Marge, a library notice for you boy, overdue again,” the man leered at Harry, revealing a bit of bacon stuck between his teeth, then—

All three of them looked up. Vernon seemed to be turning an alarming shade of purple. Harry's special teachers didn't have _Turning Purple_ on their list of faces he should study, though he had learnt about Vernon's various shades of red from experience. Harry had been proud of that fact, but now he was wondering if purple was the moment the man’s heart gave out. 

He knew the spell for restarting a heart but couldn't cast it without a wand. Was Harry supposed to know CPR? They’d had some paramedics teach a class at school once, but he'd been excused for _special lessons_ again. ( _Look at me, Harry. If you do this maths worksheet you may read the latest_ National Geographic _, there’s an article about the Hubble in there. Look at me, Harry—)_

“Out, get _out_ ,” Vernon spluttered.

“Go play outside, boys,” Petunia ordered.

Sighing, Harry got to his feet. He might as well go return his library books.

Things had settled down by the time he got back. Vernon was in his armchair on what looked to be his third glass of brandy. Dudley had his 8-bit video game on at full volume. 

Petunia called Harry into the kitchen. “You’ve been accepted to a special school,” she began. 

That wasn't really surprising. Harry knew a lot of maths and science, even if he was terrible at communicating. He'd been going to _special lessons_ since his first month of muggle school, so it only made sense they were sending him to the _special_ version of Smeltings, or Stonewall High, or whatever. “I did well in the Eleven-plus tests,” Harry explained. “They put me in a quiet, boring room.” It had done marvels for his ability to concentrate on the papers before him.

“I’m sure you did,” Petunia said, swallowing. She made them both a cup of tea, making sure the handle of his cup was facing him just right. “This is a different kind of special school. Your parents went there.”

Harry looked at her then. _Oh._

He would be eleven next week. His Hogwarts letter had arrived. 

His throat felt dry. He sipped his tea. “Do I have to go there?” Not-not-McGonagall had promised to take him to the National Space Centre on a field trip.

“I suspect,” Petunia said, pursing her lips, “that they’re going to be very insistent. We’ll ask, though. I’ve requested they send a teacher to explain...things.”

Harry waited until he’d finished his cuppa for her to mention magic. “Alright,” he decided when she didn’t. “May I be excused?”

xoxox

Professor Flitwick arrived bright and early the day after, ear-hair longer and grayer but spirit not having lessened the faintest with age.

Harry could hear his aunt talking to the Charms master in the kitchen, saying things like _Autism_ and _Different_ and _Struggles to Make Friends_. 

He wondered a bit at that; had she really been concerned about his ability to make friends? Maybe he should try harder. He gave her enough trouble as things were.

“You can come in now, Harry,” Petunia said then. She didn’t even raise her voice, as if she’d known he was eavesdropping.

She’d probably known he was eavesdropping, actually.

“This is Professor Flitwick, he teaches at Hogwarts.”

Harry forced himself to look up. “How do you do.”

Flitwick beamed back. Pleasantries accomplished, Harry let himself look at the tiles on the wall, counting them in groups of ten, then eight, then twelve. He still hadn’t decided which base made for a better numbering system and was rather upset they'd tried teaching him only the one option.

“Are you listening, Harry?” Petunia interrupted.

The guilt must have been clear on his face. Harry hated the way everyone could always see his thoughts even without legilimency. He straightened, schooling himself to look _Perfectly Polite_. “Yes, sorry. Magic, Charms, Hogwarts. But what about Leicester?”

“What’s in Leicester, then?”

They could hear Dudley’s snickering from the hallway. 

Petunia flushed. Harry liked Petunia's face, it was easy to read, too. “Dudley Hamish Dursley, I thought I’d raised you better than that!”

Footsteps stomped back up the stairs, though Harry could hear his cousin sneaking right back down again. “Can Dudley come in?” The good thing about the boy was his excellent ability to hold a conversation. When he wasn't acting jealous or pretending to be 'cool', he'd even talk to Harry, never minding that Harry needed a lot of extra time to find the right words for his responses. 

Right now Flitwick was trying to carry this conversation with his enthusiasm alone, and that didn't seem fair.

On cue, Dudley burst in. “That museum’s in Leicester, the fancy space one. Harry’s wanted to go for ages.” He turned to Flitwick. “Harry’s obsessed with stars. He knows all the names and all the stories. He can tell you the science stuff too, but that’s boring.”

“ _Dudley_ ,” Petunia warned.

The boy stood at attention. “Dudley Dursley, Harry’s cousin. Pleased to meet you Professor Flitwick sir.” He sat. 

Flitwick smiled. “I see you’ve raised two fine young gentlemen, Mrs. Dursley.”

At this point Vernon would have said something about Dudley being a _strapping young lad_. This, too, was a metaphor, though completely unrelated to the velcro straps on Harry's shoes. It seemed like everything Harry didn't understand turned out to be a metaphor, but not-not-McGonagall had promised he'd figure them out eventually.

Petunia softened with Flitwick's compliment. With any luck she'd even let Harry take a train over to Leicester.

“As I was saying," Flitwick continued, "it’s very important that Harry learns to control his magic. It might get dangerous otherwise, especially when he gets emotional. You mustn't worry, Mrs Dursley, he's not the only special child at Hogwarts, and we’ll look into getting him some extra help if you’re sure he needs it. Now, how about a trip to Diagon Alley?”

Harry groaned. Diagon Alley was loud, colourful and very, very busy. He could feel the headache coming already.

Apparently, Petunia could too. “I’ll do his shopping. Just the robes will need adjusting, yes? I’ll take his measurements myself.”

“He’ll need to choose his own wand, Mrs. Dursley.”

Harry thought of the wand sitting in the farthest corner of his room, resting under the loose floorboard next to a gaudy ring, and a cloak that felt like water spun to thread. Ollivander would be hard-pressed to find a wand more eager to be used than that one.

In a very un-flashy demonstration of magic, Flitwick cast a common measurement charm. And then they were off: Dudley to Piers' house, while Harry, Aunt Petunia and Flitwick embarked on their journey to the Leaky Cauldron the muggle way.

As much as Harry didn't want Vernon to be involved, this would have been so much easier in the man's car with its smooth leather upholstery.

The seats on the bus were entirely overgrown by bacteria, though Flitwick and Petunia seemed unbothered. The tube was even worse, sporting fabric older than both Harry's lives combined. The Leaky Cauldron wasn't any cleaner, but at least it was _magical_ dirt. Somehow, that seemed a little less horrifying.

Harry was dropped off at Ollivander's— _Stay_ , Aunt Petunia had again ordered firmly—so that she and Professor Flitwick could get his Hogwarts things.

“Harry Potter,” Ollivander greeted, his voice seeming to whisper from the shadows.

Being left at Piers' house would have been preferable. Ollivander had terrified him when he was eleven the first time, and the man had gotten even creepier with age. At this point, it was unclear if the man was even fully human.

Of course, it was perfectly normal that Ollivander had been expecting him, but did he have to be so _freakish_ about it? 

And yet, the man was a notorious gossip. Seeing as he was likely to be Harry's only contact with wizardkind before September, Harry thought he might as well take advantage. The wand-maker had already rattled off descriptions of James' and Lily's wands.

“What about my parents' friends’?” Harry asked.

Alice, Remus, Marlene, and finally—

“Peter Pettigrew's tale is a tragic one, of course. They awarded him a posthumous Order of Merlin, for whatever good that might have done him. Chestnut and dragon heartstring, only nine inches, but he always was on the smaller side. Such a brave, brave soul.”

There was something in Harry's throat stopping him from swallowing. It was suddenly very loud in the room, the dust making it difficult to breathe properly. _What miraculous story had they bestowed upon him?_ It made no sense, they couldn’t have known about him stepping in front of that car. The muggles had buried his body as John Doe and the only visitors his grave received were Harry and Petunia, every January.

“And Sirius?” he asked once he was sure he could get the words out without choking. 

Ollivander’s face closed. “He’s rotting in Azkaban for his crimes, boy, don’t you worry.”

xoxox

Harry didn’t remember the rest of the conversation. He’d been fitted with a wand, phoenix and holly. Petunia had come in at some point bearing a pouch full of Galleons to pay, then Flitwick had apparated them home: first Petunia, then Harry, then the trunk full of his shopping.

The trunk's soft sheep's leather made him think of Aries, who died for the prince. Harry ran his finger over the runes on the inside cover and wondered who had taken over Master Whittaker's shop. 

His wand was promptly taken from him, 'lest he get himself in trouble,' but he got to keep the rest. Even the dust between the pages of his textbooks smelled of magic. It felt soothing, comfortable.

On Harry's wall a calendar counted down the days until September first. He was going back to Hogwarts.

He was going back to _magic_.

xoxox

By the time the day arrived Harry's trunk had somehow—as if enchanted—expanded its internal dimensions while shrinking to the size of a valise. There was even a hidden compartment worked into the lining so that the Hallows could come with him.

At this point Harry wasn't sure they'd let him leave them behind.

Petunia saw him off with a packed lunch and an uncomfortable kiss pressed to his hair. "Be good," she said. "Listen to your teachers." And as if as an afterthought, just before the barrier, "Promise me you'll try to make friends."

"I promise," Harry told her. He pushed through the brick wall.

The Express looked just like he remembered it. The platform was overrun with children, adults, and noise. Yet somehow it wasn't the bad kind of noise, it was noise like the rumble of trains and the sound of laundry snapping about in the wind. Harry carried his smaller-on-the-outside trunk up the steps and into the communal carriage. 

When a boy called Draco came and introduced himself, Harry politely sent him on his way. He had tried making friends with a star last time. 

This time around, he wanted something a bit more…grounded.

xoxox

Thank you for so many comments last time I posted. I have innumerate stories inside me, and you make me want to write them all.  
Shout out to davidwelch158 for the share on reddit.

Do we have a canon middle name for Dudley? I've been reading Sherlock fics lately, so calling him Hamish just tickled me.


	8. In the wind's singing

"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. Very difficult."

Harry waited, trying very hard not to tremble. He could feel a thousand eyes looking at him.

"Plenty of cunning," the hat murmured. 

_Not Slytherin_ , Harry thought back, before the hat could go anywhere with _that_. He focused on how he loved the library, about all the studying he'd done, of how well he'd fit in with the Ravenclaws and their intense-quiet-bookishness.

"You like learning, but it's not what you value most," the hat disagreed. "You could be great, you know."

Frantically, Harry changed tack. He thought of how he always told the truth, how he'd been loyal to the Dursleys.

The hat laughed into his mind. "Loyalty isn't your strong suit. But I don't sort by what you are, lad, I sort by what you most want to be.” 

It came up unbidden, the cutting disappointment that had been thrown at him all his life. _I thought you were a Gryffindor_.

 _Not Gryffindor_ , Harry hastened. He didn't want to spend seven years sleeping in the same bed as last time. The very _thought_ filled him with dread.

"Now that's interesting...but you can't have it both ways. I can see it now, it's all here in your head. Better be GRYFFINDOR!"

The great hall burst into tumultuous applause. Harry could hear only the sound of his own breaking heart. 

He tucked his chin down and stumbled into the closest empty seat at the long table. He wondered if Petunia would let him go to another school after all.

The boy sitting beside him handed over his napkin. Harry noticed the tears on his own face just in time to wipe them away. "Thanks," he mumbled.

"I'm Neville," the boy replied. There was dirt under his fingernails and a grass stain on his trousers. He wasn't very tall, or handsome, nor was he brimming with light.

In short, he was the exact opposite of Sirius. 

Harry smiled back, albeit still a bit watery. _Perhaps he should give Gryffindor another chance._

xoxox

 _Dear Aunt Petunia,_ Harry lettered in his neatest hand,

_You didn't tell me to write, but I suppose you just forgot. Or maybe you told me and I wasn't listening._

_I'm in Gryffindor house, the same as Lily and James were. It's alright. The common room is very loud but I've spelled my four-poster in the dorm nice and quiet._

_There's a third-year boy with a tarantula named Lee. (The boy is called Lee, not the tarantula.) I remember you said_ No Arachnids As Pets _when I asked for a scorpion but his family is making it work just fine. Also there's a girl with a kneazle and another one with a terrapin. Someone else has a crup, which runs around the common room knocking things over with its tails._

 _I share the dorm with a boy who seems to be the only one to have read the_ Owl OR Cat OR Toad _part of the Hogwarts letter. His name is Neville and his toad Trevor has a knack for getting lost. You'd like Neville, he looks a bit like Dudley but with more dirt. His favourite class is Herbology but he's scared of Potions (magical Chemistry). I have decided to teach him about Chemistry. We're going to be friends._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Harry_

xoxox

On Thursday, McGonagall summoned him to her office before dinner.

She sat behind her desk, bearing down on him with the full intensity of her stern grey bun and her steely green eyes. There was an untouched plate of digestives between them. "How are you feeling today Harry?" she asked. "Can you tell me what you learnt this week?"

It was uncanny. Harry stared at his hands, unsure of what to say.

 _Everyone keeps trying to talk to me because I'm 'Harry Potter' but I don't think they_ see me _at all._

_I had been anxious about sleeping somewhere new but my four-poster is so familiar it hurts._

_I wish I could have been in Ravenclaw._

"Classes are alright." Harry said.

The Professor was staring at him, he didn't need to look at her to be able to tell that.

"I read all my textbooks last month," Harry added. _And I've been in these classes before._

"Hmmm," said McGonagall. It was like she was judging him. She didn't make him feel safe the way not-McGonagall and not-not-McGonagall had done. 

The sensation was exactly one of being a rat crouched before a looming cat. Harry hadn't liked McGonagall from the beginning because she made him feel stupid, and becoming an animagus had only made it worse. He tried not to shake with his nerves.

Rats were simple creatures with simple emotions. Cats were more complex, and it was clear that McGonagall was finding him lacking.

"I'm sure you're very busy," Harry whispered. "Please may I go?"

"Your Aunt insisted on these sessions. Look at me when I'm speaking, Harry."

He made himself glance up. If Petunia's face was an open book, then McGonagall's was a Gringotts vault. Harry wished he could tell what she was thinking. Was it more disappointment? She certainly made him feel very small. "Perhaps there's another teacher that I could talk with?" he hedged, speaking to her chin. "Maybe Professor Sinistra?"

McGonagall's lips curled into a brief smile. "Professor Flitwick mentioned you enjoyed Astronomy. She does not reside at Hogwarts, however. I will ask her on your behalf." 

They spent the next minutes in uncomfortable silence.

"You look just like your father," McGonagall finally said. "But you have your mother's eyes."

Harry started. He'd always thought his mother's eyes had been pigeon blue. He made a mental note to acquire a picture of Lily somehow. "Can you tell me the story of how they died?" Harry remembered what had happened, but he still didn't understand how _Sirius_ of all people had ended up with the blame.

"Very well."

The story McGonagall told began with four friends sharing a dorm—it ended with one of them betraying another to the Dark Lord.

Harry marveled at how spectacularly wrong they'd gotten all the details in between.

"What happened to Peter's Order of Merlin?" he wondered. 

"They had wanted to give it to his mother, but she had died just the year before," McGonagall said. "I suppose it is on display in some trophy room at the Ministry."

It was overwhelming, all the emotions that were making his face feel too hot and his feet feel too cold. He clenched his hands into fists, relieved at the sensation of his nails digging into his palms. That, at least, he could understand.

Had it been Dumbledore's doing, the Ministry's work, or was it the Daily Prophet which had twisted the facts so far? Harry Potter, heralded as some kind of saviour for vanquishing the Dark Lord. Sirius, in Azkaban for the _Bombarda_ that killed twelve muggles and Peter Pettigrew, who himself was honoured as some kind of pointless loyal martyr. 

But Harry knew that Peter hadn't died from Sirius' curse. He hadn't even died when he'd jumped in front of the car that had killed them both. Instead, like a red sock washed with whites, or like a phoenix, or a metaphor, they'd blended to become something different. Something new: a boy who could remember to get up and go to the loo even when he was in the middle of something, and a man who was able to find comfort in being alone.

"Please may I go?" he asked again, and this time McGonagall let him.

xoxox

That night, instead of sleeping, Harry took his father's cloak and climbed all the way up the astronomy tower. He sat and watched the stars spin around him until he woke with a sore back, already late for his first Potions class.

xoxox

The next Thursday, Flitwick was the one to summon him before dinner. Harry liked Professor Flitwick, he'd been very kind so far. 

During their first Charms class Flitwick had even toppled off his books while calling attendance. Harry knew the master dueler wasn't clumsy, so it had to have been an act for Harry's sake. And it had worked—instead of twisting in their seats to stare at him the entire class had kept their eyes facing the front. 

"I'm supposed to ask you how you're feeling and what you've been learning," Flitwick said, peering at Harry over his spectacles.

Now that he was so close, Harry could see how the bristles of Flitwick's moustache moved as he spoke. 

"If you want, we could talk about something else," the moustache said.

Vernon had a moustache too, but the man was so large that Harry never really had to see his face. Flitwick was the opposite. He seemed to consist mostly of silver-dusted strands, accented by wrinkles.

Harry was as delighted as he was confused. "Did you look different when you came to Surrey?"

The pink lips under the neat moustache smiled. "I'm part-goblin, Harry. I wear a glamour when I'm among muggles."

A very logical choice. Harry decided he liked Flitwick even more than before. He answered the obligatory question. "My classes are alright, but Professor Snape hates me."

"Professor Snape doesn't hate his students," Flitwick said with a kind of tiredness, like he'd said the words many times before. "You must remember it's a dangerous subject, and just like Professor McGonagall he's very strict so that people don't get hurt."

"Seamus got covered in boils," Harry argued. "That's a terrible precedent if he's trying to avoid accidents. And I didn't say he hates everyone, just me."

Professor Flitwick shrugged. "He told us you were late to his class and didn't follow his instructions."

"The instructions were stupid." Harry remembered the recipe for boil cure, and it was meant to have a sprig of peppermint added, with holly berries instead of red peppercorns. "My potion would have worked if Snape hadn't vanished it."

" _Professor_ Snape," Flitwick corrected gently, "doesn't hate you. It's his right to take points for tardiness, and to stop you if you're not doing what you're told. This is a school, Harry. We have to prepare everyone to take the same exams at the end of the year by following the same curriculum. I know I told your aunt we could arrange some special circumstances for you but there are limits, you have to see that. You can't just do what you want."

Not-McGonagall had always proclaimed things like 'If there's a will, there's a way,' or 'There's no such thing as _can't_ '. Harry had never really been listening, the words pearling off him like water off a duck's back as he'd watched rain dribble down the windowpanes. 

But now, suddenly confronted with someone drawing arbitrary lines between what he could and couldn't do, it all flooded him. How _dare_ they tell him he was somehow less, just for being a bit different? Hot rage filled him like a whistling kettle.

"At my old school they mostly let me do my own learning so long as I managed certain tests and listened to their classes about _Faces_ and _Tonality_ and things." He said the words very fast, letting them fizz through him. "You told Aunt Petunia you wouldn't change my routines. It's not _fair_ for you to break your promises."

Life wasn't fair, Harry knew. He could feel his anger collapse like a fresh-baked flan. Not-McGonagall would have said something along the lines of, _you shouldn't let it bother you so much._

Harry took a deep breath. "You could let me study in the library and just take the exams you need me to." The words raced out of him far too quickly. 

As his face burned and the silence stretched, Harry wished desperately that he could just talk normally for once.

"Alright," Professor Flitwick finally replied. "I'll see what I can do."

 _Really?_ "Wow."

"Some older years might be willing to supervise and tutor you for a fitting reward. I'll see if your other professors aren't willing to relinquish some old tests, essay questions, and exams. Chin up, Harry, I'm a halfling of my word."

That had Harry smiling, the emotion tingling all the way to his fingertips. "Do you know about hobbits, sir? They're called halflings too. And their ears are pointed."

"I see you've been reading beyond your age group," Flitwick replied, also smiling. "Now if that's all, you've given me a fair bit of work to do."

So Harry raced back to Gryffindor tower, only losing two points for running in the halls. He stumbled over an explanation to Neville during dinner, pleased when the boy never interrupted him once. And afterwards they snuck into Greenhouse Two, tiptoeing around the tentacula and goggling at the fanged tulips while grinning from ear to ear.

xoxox

_Dear Aunt Petunia,_

_Professor Flitwick has made a new schedule for me so I don't have to do all my classes with everyone else. Most of the classes were boring anyway, luckily I only have to attend the practical lessons now. A group of sixth years have been assigned to me in case I have questions, so it's going very well._

_Well, all classes except Herbology (because every lesson is a practical already), and Potions (because Professor Snape hates me). Neville works with me in both, though, so it's not that bad._

_Overall I have settled in nicely. I miss your cooking. I miss the sound of Dudley's video games. I miss my room with the window and the view of Number Six's laundry._

_May I please have a pet next year? It doesn't even have to be an arachnid. Magical pets are very self-sufficient and it would be nice to have a companion. Ron and Sean teased me for sleeping with Ratty so I hid him in my trunk._

_Yours Sincerely,_

_Harry_

xoxox

"Professor Flitwick," Harry began before he could ask the usual Thursday questions, "why doesn't my aunt write back?"

"She's writing to me," Flitwick admitted easily. "I can ask her for you, if you like."

The thought made Harry feel sick. As usual, people were speaking about him behind his back, as if he weren't clever enough to keep up. "It's okay," he said quietly. He didn't want Petunia to write because someone asked her to, but because she _wanted_ to.

"Let's talk about how your classes have been going," Flitwick allowed, changing the topic. 

Harry sighed in relief.

xoxox

_Dear Harry,_

_Thank you for writing. I'm sorry I didn't reply,_ _~~I was having trouble with the owls— it's been awfully busy~~ — _ _I didn't know what to say._

_Things have been very different here since you and Dudley left. I didn't realise it before but I miss the sound of Dudley's video games, too. Cooking for only myself and Vernon has been hard, I keep making too much. I'm talking to Professor Flitwick about the possibility of sending you a package with some biscuits._

_It's good you're settling in alright. It's strange, on one level I'm glad the transition has been so easy for you and on the other I'm upset by it. You have always had such a hard time of things, no matter how much we tried. To think, all you needed was magical boarding school to sort yourself out._

_Marge is visiting next week. It'll be interesting, at least._

_Take care of yourself, Harry._

_Your Aunt Petunia_

xoxox

_Dear Aunt Petunia,_

_I enjoyed the biscuits very much, thank you._

_Did you know there was a troll here on Halloween? A girl almost died. Neville said nobody has been able to get word out to their families, so I enchanted this letter to be unreadable to anybody but you._

_My new friend Nymphadora has been helping me with my runes projects. She's much older than me but she needs to pass potions for her job so she's staying at Hogwarts another year. You'd hate her because her hair is pink, but I really like her._

_I don't think she's used a single metaphor while speaking to me. It's like she understands._

_Did Ripper dig up the roses again?_

_Yours Sincerely,_

_Harry_

xoxox


	9. More distant and more solemn than a fading star

After the troll incident, Hermione Granger joined Harry in the library most days.

She didn't talk much anymore. Ronald Weasley said she'd been hit on the head and it had made her go loony, but Harry wasn't so sure. He'd been called loony lots even though he wasn't stupid.

"I like how you're quiet," Harry told her on Thursday as they packed away their books. "It's like you're giving me space to talk. Not many people do that."

Then they parted ways, her to the Hospital Wing and him to Flitwick's office.

"How are you feeling today Harry?" Flitwick began.

As usual, he didn't really know. It was hard to tell most of the time, unless someone asked. Harry took a moment to think about what was happening inside his chest, just like the Charms master had taught him. Today it was one of the emotions he didn't feel so often, all fluttery and strange. "Worried," Harry decided upon examining the cold sweat on his palms. 

At this point his _special counsellors_ would have interrupted with some inane question. 

Flitwick just waited. 

Harry really liked that about him. His train of thought chugged along with a contented rumbling. "Hermione is very sad. She listens too much when Ronald Weasley says mean things."

Flitwick's face wasn't doing much of anything; Harry wasn't sure what to make of it. 

"How do you know she's sad?"

"She told me." _Obviously_. How else did anyone know anything, besides reading or being told?

"Harry," Flitwick said very gently, "Miss Granger can't talk. Something was hurt in her head and the healers haven't figured out how to fix her yet."

 _People_ , Harry reminded himself calmly, _were idiots_. "You don't have to talk to me like I'm a child. Was it like a brain aneurysm, then?" He had done a lot of research about blood pressure after the time Vernon's head had turned purple. 

"I'm sorry, Harry, but I'm not going to discuss the details of Miss Grangers medical condition with you, just like I would never discuss yours with anyone else."

"Liar." The word jumped out without his meaning to have said it. "I mean," Harry added, the his tongue tripping with his haste, "You talk to Aunt Petunia about me all the time."

"I'm sorry, Harry," was all Flitwick said. 

It was concise, logical, and to the point. He liked that about the professor—there was no faffing about. "That's alright."

Flitwick was smiling now, his mustache bristling gloriously. "Nevertheless, it remains true that Miss Granger can read, but not write or speak. Therefore, she won't have told you about her sadness. Will you tell me how you know?"

Harry hadn't realised she _couldn't_ talk at all. But she communicated with everything else, like how she'd sit next to him even though she hadn't liked him before. Sadness was written on her shoulder blades, in the way she held her head, how she switched between sighs of frustration and of melancholy. "I just know," he decided to say. "Like I know Fluffy's right head likes playing tug but his middle head likes sleeping."

"Are you comparing Hermione to a cerberus?" Flitwick said with strong disapproval. "Harry, how do you know about Fluffy?"

What followed was a very long lecture about inappropriate usage of the unlocking charm—or at least that was how the lecture started, Harry didn't actually bother listening to the rest. He'd decided if Hermione wasn't able to speak, maybe he could teach her about listening.

xoxox

"Come on," Harry whispered urgently, gathering James' cloak up so they wouldn't trip over the hem. "Filch always comes this way around nine."

Hermione followed wordlessly. Her body language said _Eagerness_ but her face was a perfect copy of Aunt Petunia's _Stern Look_. Harry just hurried up the stairs to the astronomy tower. Both of them were panting when they reached the top.

The cushioning charm for the floor and locking charm for the door were easy enough to cast. Hermione was staring at his wand, but Harry gestured towards the stars. "Look," he said, letting himself fall to the ground as the cloak puddled midnight around him. "Listen. They make you seem small in comparison, but they can be constant companions if you let them. The stars will never let you feel alone."

She sat down beside him, her head tilted skyward. Harry could see the scar that ran all the way from her neckline to her brow. 

"Do you know the stories? Can you see Sirius?"

Hermione shook her head no. Despite the three astronomy classes they'd already had, she was still a blank slate.

Harry thought she was perfect. "Look there," he began, pointing. "Ursa Minor is always easy to spot, and there's Orion's belt. You can go in quadrants from the Huntsman. Their positions are always changing relative to us because of the way the Earth is hurtling through space, except for Sirius. That one is actually a set of binary stars and it moves consistently in the same 365-day orbit alongside us. The ancient Egyptians believed her a goddess whose rising heralded the flooding of the Nile. The Greeks thought he brought wilt and would weaken men.

"It's the exact same star in two cultures that existed around the same time. Even though they saw the same thing they interpreted it very differently. Something can be a blessing or a curse depending on your perspective."

Harry looked at her as he paused for breath. She was smiling, and he smiled back hesitantly. Hermione pointed up in the direction of Leo. 

"The lion," Harry explained, "is made of nine main stars and six lesser stars. The bright one in the middle is Regulus, the king. In the legends it was a monstrous beast which Hercules wrestled to death, and afterwards Zeus threw the lion into the stars. 

"But to us he represents Gryffindor's own lion, on the back of which Godric himself used to ride into battle. The beast fell in a fight against a mighty dragon, and in his grief Godric cast a spell to memorialise his brave companion. Salazar Slytherin, unwilling to be outdone, put up his water snake in the constellation right next to it."

Harry let the silence grow between them, thinking of the right way to say things, as the _truth_ and without metaphors.

"There's a thousand different ways you can tell a story, Hermione," he told her. "Just because Ronald Weasley says it happened one way doesn't mean his version is right. I bet there's a version of this story where you, Ronald and I are the best friends, running around all year solving mysteries. But this is _our version_ of things. With magic, we can make the world be however we want."

Someone cleared their throat right next to the classroom door.

Harry squeaked, his heart already racing.

"That was well said," the voice said. It sounded like McGonagall's.

But the shoes were Nymphadora's, flecked with potions stains, and dirt. Relief hit Harry like a bludger; he slumped back into the cushioned floor. "Oh, thank Merlin," he breathed.

Not-McGonagall's hair melted into pink. "How do you always know, Harry?" she whined. 

Hermione's brows were all furrowed in evident confusion. 

"This is not McGonagall," Harry introduced. "Nymphadora Tonks is here to get her potions NEWT so she can be an auror." He considered the benefits of making a list of not-McGonagalls. Was there really any point to it, though, if there was only one real deputy Headmistress?

"I’m here because you both should be in bed," Nymphadora said. "Ten points from Gryffindor by the way. And five points _to_ Gryffindor for demonstrating such an excellent grasp of Astronomy. Each." She led them all the way back to the portrait of the Fat Lady. "Good night Harry, Hermione."

It would end up taking a month for Hermione to relearn to write, and almost a year before she could talk again. But it took only a moment—stretched over cushioning charms on the Astronomy tower floor—for her to make a friend.

xoxox

 _Dear Aunt Petunia,_ Harry began—and then he stopped. 

He didn't know which words he was looking for.

 _I've stopped missing number four, Privet Drive as much as I used to_. Those weren't kind words, though. Flitwick said he shouldn't say things that might hurt someone if he didn't need to.

 _Hermione's a freak, like me. She doesn't talk much._ No, that was too pitiful.

 _I'm doing very well in my classes, though sometimes there's a disconnect between when I say the spell and what comes out, so the magic doesn't flow properly. Professor Flitwick says I should try nonverbal casting like Hermione is learning._ That wasn't right either; Aunt Petunia had never been interested in magical things.

 _Why haven't you asked me to come back home over the Christmas break?_ Merlin no, he didn't want to say that. 

The words stared back at him from the page, black on white. 

_I don't understand_. 

Harry ripped the letter in half and cast an _Incendio_ for good measure. 

_Dear Aunt Petunia_ , he tried again.

_I wish you, Dudley and Uncle Vernon a merry Christmas and a happy New Year._

_Sincerely,_

_Harry_

The next day, almost the whole school left to spend the holidays with their families. The common room was entirely overrun by left-over Weasleys, so Hermione and Harry retreated to the library. 

After lunch, Nymphadora collected them with a kind smile to show them the Hufflepuff common room. Harry had snuck in there before with James and Sirius, but it looked even warmer during the day with its overgrown earthiness. Neville would have loved it, if he hadn't been home with his mum and gran for the holiday.

Side by side with Hermione, Harry sank into the overstuffed armchairs by the crackling fire. Nymphadora left them to spend the afternoon huddled behind comforting books with hot drinks cradled in their hands.

He didn't know about Hermione, but none of it made the cold in his belly any lesser. 

She was reading, as usual, but when Harry tried that his eyes would just move over the page without anything reaching him. For once, Harry wasn't the one who had let someone down—he'd been trying not to think about the Dursleys all week, but his mind kept circling back to them like a fly to carrion. A great deal of Dursley-related disappointment curled heavily in his gut.

After dinner on Christmas Eve Harry accompanied Nymphadora to the Astronomy Tower. They lay on their backs nestled between cushioning and warming charms, watching time pass.

"My mother's called Andromeda," Nymphadora offered, squinting in the wrong direction.

Harry pointed. "With sixteen stars she's one of the biggest constellations. In the ancient myths she was princess of Aethiopia until her father tried to sacrifice her to a monster. The hero Perseus made her queen of Greece instead. I looked up the Black family tree, Andromeda is the only one who broke the naming tradition.”

"Is that why you insist on calling me _Nymphadora_ , even though I've told you I like _Tonks_?"

"I like your name, it's wonderful. She was very wise to name you after _change_ , instead of something as unreachable as a star."

Nymphadora morphed herself so she was looking back at Harry with his own face. The green eyes didn't look so startling out under the night sky as they did every morning in the mirror. As he watched, she transformed her nose into a pig's snout.

"What's it like?" he asked.

"What's what like?" 

Admittedly, he could have said that better. "What's it like being anyone? You can be a boy or a girl, look like me or even be not-McGonagall." He floundered for a long moment, searching for the right words. The stars stared back, offering no answers. "I mean, how can you be two people at once and still be yourself?"

His friend smiled at him, and the stars smiled at him. "I don't know that one either, Harry. I think that's one of those things everyone has to figure out for themselves when they're ready. For now I'll just keep trying versions of myself on for size until I find one that fits."

Harry nodded—as if he understood—because he didn't want her to think he was stupid. Nymphadora was so kind, and clever. She never made him feel like he was _less_.

Neither of them said much more after that, but it was alright.

"Happy Christmas," Nymphadora whispered as clouds began to put out the stars, one by one, like a _Nox_.

"Thanks. Happy Christmas to you too."

xoxox

On Christmas morning Harry awoke to a stack of gifts piled at the foot of his bed.

He didn't actually recall having gone to bed. This was the morning's first point of confusion.

The second was that Hermione had perched herself on Neville's neat covers. She was holding something in one hand.

Harry put on his glasses to check. Yes, it was definitely Hermione, who had woken him by tossing…socks? At least they were freshly laundered girl-socks, nothing like Vernon's woolly monstrosities. He threw the socks that had landed on his blankets back at her.

Hermione grinned and waved.

In the next bed Ronald let out another snore and rolled over in his sleep, his pet garden gnome Scabby snoring just as loudly from its place on the boy's pillow. Following Hermione's gesturing, Harry cast a silent levitation spell on his presents and followed her to the common room.

Percy Weasley greeted them with a stiff nod and a "Happy Christmas, Harry."

There was a small pile of parcels already sitting by the best armchairs. Harry sat down beside Hermione so that they could enjoy the act of shredding wrapping paper, together.

"You'd be an excellent nest-maker," Harry told her, admiring the colourful ribbons. Would it be strange to keep them?

He only half-noticed Hermione's befuddled look. His gifts had all been sweets and books, but he'd saved the largest for last. It was very light and the paper it bore was adorned with familiar writing.

_For Harry Potter, from Aunt Petunia_

His hands trembled slightly as he curled a finger under the checkered paper. Slowly, almost reverently, he tore it down the side.

It was a cage. A decent-sized cage with enough space for a thick layer of bedding. There was a plastic running wheel in the corner and a metal drip bottle.

_Had Aunt Petunia figured out he used to be a rat?_

No, that was ludicrous. She couldn't possibly know, and even if she did this wouldn't be her way of letting him know. 

_Was that why she hadn't told him to come spend Christmas break with the family?_

Doubt gnawed at his insides.

"Uah," Hermione said. 

Harry's eyes snapped up to her face. She had scrunched up her brows but she didn't look to be in pain. 

She pushed her muggle notebook into his hands. 

"What's that?" Hermione's writing said.

Harry shrugged. "It's a cage, like for a rat."

It was impossible to miss the way Hermione rolled her eyes in response. Harry had been learning a lot about how to determine her thoughts from her expressions. At that moment her face was saying, "What _else_ can you tell me?" 

"I don't know. Aunt Petunia sent it for Christmas." Then he remembered the note with its sharp lettering. He scrabbled for it.

_Dear Harry,_

_Since you've been doing so well at Hogwarts I thought it best you stay there over the holiday. I will miss your help with the Christmas baking but I do believe it's for the best._

_After extensive talks with Professor Flitwick I have decided a pet is a good idea for your development. You must take care of your new rat by yourself but can ask a prefect or teacher for help whenever you need it. You will be accompanied to a nearby shop to choose your own rat. You_ may not _choose a scorpion, spider or anything other than a single small rodent._

_Thank you for your well-wishes. I hope you and your friends at the castle also have a lovely Christmas._

_Your Aunt Petunia_

Harry stared and stared at the words until he was sure he'd read them ten times over.

When Hermione reached out he let her gentle hands take the letter from him.

Had Aunt Petunia never considered asking _him_ what _he_ wanted? Harry couldn't figure out what he felt, just that it was an uncomfortable pressure sitting heavily on his heart. 

"Are you _crying_ Harry?" Ronald Weasley's voice cut into his thoughts.

Hermione stood up hotly, placing herself between Harry and the rest of the common room like a human patronus.

It just made Harry cry harder. He hugged himself and started rocking, hating that he was being reduced to this by a letter, by a rat, by his friend standing up to a bully for him. Would it have been too much to ask for him to be normal, with a normal family and a normal life?

But that wouldn't have been enough either, he knew. He'd already lived a normal life, and that had gone to Hades.

His thoughts kept spiraling, even though he just wanted them to stop, to leave him _alone_. He pinched himself, hard, though that never helped much.

Then Flitwick came in. "Oh dear," Harry heard the half-man say, the words reverberating around him like they were very distant even when Flitwick was standing right next to him.

Harry flinched away, his body filled to the brim with shame.

"It's alright, Harry. Take your time. I've sent the Weasleys on to breakfast so it's just us and Miss Granger now. Can she stay?"

For a moment a memory flashed up, some stupid teacher mocking him. " _I don't know Harry,_ can you _go to the bathroom?_ " He'd wet himself then and the whole class had watched, laughing.

Flitwick was still talking distantly. "Miss Granger, perhaps you should go back to your dorm for a minute—"

"No," Harry choked. She should stay and see how messed up he was. It was only fair she knew what she was getting into, being his friend.

_Were they even still friends?_

"Harry," Flitwick's voice said, "How about we focus on breathing. In and out, there we go. Pop your mouth open for me please."

Suddenly there was something cold on his tongue. Harry stopped rocking.

He pushed it around his mouth, feeling the way it clicked against his teeth. It was bizarre. Harry sucked, was that ice? Water was puddling around the rounded cube. _Yes, ice_ , he determined. Harry opened his eyes.

"Oh good, you're back with us," Professor Flitwick said cheerily, as if nothing had happened. Hermione was smiling too, even though she didn't have to. Harry wondered what he'd done to deserve her loyalty, for all that they were lions. 

Not that he was really a proper Gryffindor anyway. 

Flitwick was still there. "How about we have a quick spot of breakfast here and then head down to Hogsmeade right after?"

Right. Because he had to pick out his rat.

It wasn't even that he didn't want a pet, and a rat would make a lovely companion—he just felt so _helpless_. Like everyone else was living his life for him already, regardless of what Harry himself thought about it. 

There was a question in the quirk of Flitwick's eyebrows, but the half-man seemed unbothered waiting for a response. Harry's respect for his professor grew even further. "I'd like that," Harry decided. "May Hermione please come with?"

Bundled up in warming charms, cloaks, and scarves, the three of them made their way to Hogsmeade. They even managed to dodge the Weasleys' messy snowball fight.

After a few seconds worth of deep thought, Harry picked out a patchy gray-and-brown piebald that looked almost exactly like Wormtail had. 

"Are you sure you don't want one of these?" the shopkeep asked, directing him towards a group of sleek black mice that were _primping_ themselves—even part-human Wormtail had never done something so unnatural.

"I want this one," Harry confirmed. "I shall call him Ratty and he shall be mine and he shall be my Ratty."

xoxox

I've been talked into sharing some of my works in progress, so those will be coming your way sometime in the future, too. Please keep spreading the word on reddit etc, Peter's story is still suffering from unpopular-character syndrome. Thank you for all your support. I delight in every review.


	10. Let me also wear such deliberate disguises

The last night before the end of the holiday, Harry woke to the sound of the window clattering in the wind. Still half-asleep, he slippered his feet and shut it properly. Then, just as he was tucking himself back into bed, he realised Ratty was gone.

Harry jumped up, suddenly wide awake, his heart lurching into a terrified sprint. 

The cage was empty, but Ratty had proven himself an escape artist and it wasn't dangerous for him to roam their dorm room. 

Somehow Harry just  _ knew _ though that his pet was much farther away. He looked around, seeing the door was ajar.

For a second he hated Ronald, loathed him with all his body and soul. He'd asked the boy for literally one, simple thing, _ to keep the bloody door shut _ , and the idiotic Weasley couldn't even do that.

But Ronald was just a stupid boy; Harry should never have trusted him. Like with the flick of a muggle light switch, he was suddenly directing all that anger at himself. Why, why,  _ why  _ hadn't he thought to cast a tracking spell? He was supposed to be responsible for Ratty and now the poor thing was likely roaming Gryffindor Tower. She'd get them  _ both  _ into trouble. 

The only good part in this was that there weren't any cats in the dorms, at least not until the other students returned the next day.

Harry yanked on his shoes and a robe before hurrying from the room. He pocketed some treats and lit his wand, lest he tumble down the stairs and wake prissy Percy.

To his absolute horror he found the low-burning firelight shining on the back of the Fat Lady's portrait. The passage was wide open.

"Finally! Come here boy," the Lady was already sputtering at Harry. "It's awfully drafty, I don't know what's gotten into you lot. So irresponsible—"

"Have you seen my rat?" 

"Goodness, how rude. Youth aren't how they used to be, back in my day—"

Harry raised his wand at her and donned his best  _ Stern Look _ .

"I  _ have  _ seen  _ a  _ rat," she said, "How am I supposed to know if it was yours?"

But Harry was already rushing through into the corridor. "Which way?"

"Left, but boy, you must—"

There was a shadow moving over the steps towards the rest of the castle. Harry ran.

xoxox

He followed it down stairs, up corridors, through tapestries, until finally the shadow slipped under a classroom door. Harry's body sagged with relief as he let himself into the room. He didn't want to imagine what would have happened if Mrs Norris had found Ratty first.

For good measure, he cast a spell to seal off the door. Then Harry looked around. 

It was a quiet room, with dust whirling through the moonlight that was pouring in through the windows.

_ How odd _ , Harry thought. It had been a new moon only the week before.

The only furnishings were some cupboards off to one side, with half the doors hanging askew. Beside that was what must have once been the professor's desk. Harry had thought he'd recognised this room when he'd come in but it looked all…wrong. This had been an old divination classroom back  _ then _ , full of round tables and seemingly endless shelves of cheap tea sets. 

Harry set down some treats for Ratty by the cupboard to lure her out. 

Although he didn't think much of divination, the entire room felt off. He had helped set up enough pranks that he could tell when something looked staged. This furniture had been  _ made  _ to look like it had been abandoned here half a century ago. There was even an ominous-looking sheet half-draped over a mirror on the far end of the room.

With a start Harry realised he'd already taken a few steps over, as if the mirror had some kind of magnetic pull on him. Was this the only remnant from Professor Mesmer's days?

Harry firmly turned his back on it and examined Ratty's treats. There was no sign of her yet, but he knew she had to be in here.

_ Or did she? _

This entire thing was feeling increasingly like something Sirius and James would have cooked up: lure him out of bed, make him run wildly through the castle, bait him into this room with its creepy divination mirror.

Hook, line, sinker.

Gods, he had been so  _ stupid.  _ Harry turned around to face the prank, the trap, whatever it was. He watched the sheet billowing for a while, though he was certain there wasn't a draft. 

This was almost as creepy as Ollivander's shop. 

He raised his wand and levitated the sheet off so that it would stop moving. "Ratty?" Harry called out softly, "Are you here Ratty?"

There was nothing, not even the pattering of tiny feet against wooden furniture.

_ Right, best to get it over with. _ Harry steeled himself and stepped towards the mirror, careful to keep his face blank and his eyes peeled for when this trap swung shut on him. He wasn't going to scream and he certainly wasn't going to cry again like some baby .

_ Relax, Peter, we're just kidding. Merlin, learn to take a joke. _

_ (I thought you were a Gryffindor.) _

Harry couldn't decipher the meaning of the writing on the mirror's frame. He stepped even closer.

_ Stupid, stupid, stupid. _

On the other side of the frame he could see himself, safe in bed with Ratty curled up on his covers. Harry turned away, disappointed. No wonder they had left this stupid mirror behind, it didn't divine anything more interesting than an image from two hours in the past.

Where was the rest of the prank? Harry glanced back to the front of the room but Ratty still hadn't showed up, if she was even in here at all. He peered suspiciously out the window at the unnatural view of the black lake under a full moon. Wisps of clouds made it hard to see the stars that would at least have told him which month this window pointed to. The plants only told him he was looking at a time from late spring to early summer. There wasn't any other clue if this was future or past...except—

—the Whomping Willow wasn't there. Just gone, like it had never existed to begin with. Harry shuddered, only then realising how freezing cold it was.

"Hello Harry," a familiar voice greeted.

He whirled so fast he only just managed to not fall over. The man looked like Dumbledore. Harry checked the shoes: deep purple suede. This was the Headmaster himself.

"I'm sorry, sir," Harry said, "I was looking for my rat. I think someone set me up as a prank."

He could already see the faces of a hundred Gryffindors returning from the holidays to see their house points down by half. The Slytherins would be ecstatic, of course, and Draco would prance around bragging for the next month's worth of potions classes.

Oh,  _ fuck _ , the headmaster was still speaking, why hadn't he been paying attention? "...makes you think this is a prank?"

That question was easy enough, thank the gods, Merlin, and Morgana herself. "The moonlight from the window makes the room look extra creepy, but the illusion is all wrong. This is a summer night at least twelve years ago, likely viewed—" he looked out again to check "from the front of the Transfiguration room, sir."

Harry examined the man's suede shoes while the silence bloomed between them. Harry felt like he was in Greenhouse four, where some carnivorous plant was preparing to pounce on him.

"I am beginning to understand that you are a lot cleverer than most people give you credit for, my boy."

It was hardly Harry's fault that people weren't ever looking at him properly. Upon realising Professor Dumbledore was expecting some kind of response, he shrugged.

"Do you know what that mirror does, Harry?" the Headmaster asked.

For a second Harry was reminded of the Dark Lord.  _ What do you know about...about prophecies? _ Was this some kind of test, too? Would his answer change the number of house points he lost for being caught out of bed after curfew? "Some kind of divination, sir?"

"Well done Harry," Dumbledore said. "This is the Mirror of Erised, it shows you nothing more or less than your heart's desire."

_ What? _ Harry's mind skittered. He leaned back into the frame; there he was, Ratty nearby, sleeping peacefully in his four-poster.  _ Perhaps that was it? _ Harry hadn't slept well since...as long as he could remember, over thirty years of life. But it seemed a bit shallow for his heart to desire rest.

"I don't understand, sir."

"I can't explain it unless you tell me what you see," Dumbledore said, and suddenly it all fell into place. 

Waking up to the window banging open. The shadow-rat that he'd chased through half the castle. This dusty room with its carefully-crafted illusions. 

Perhaps the Weasley twins would have managed one of those things, but all of them together made for a complex web of carefully-woven magic far beyond any schoolchild. And all of it, apparently, to tease this one answer out of Harry.

He studied his reflection for a moment. "Peace," he decided to call it. "I desire peace." Then he looked away, tired of being played. "What about you, Headmaster?"

The man's wrinkles softened into a strange kind of smile. "I see myself holding a pair of hand-knitted socks."

"Okay." Harry didn't care to trade more lies. "May I please go to bed now, sir?"

"Certainly, I'll be happy to accompany you. Alas, I was under the impression you came here searching for something." At this he pulled the little piebald from his pocket. Ratty wasn't moving.

_ No _ .

Surely Dumbledore wouldn't have—

"He's sleeping," the old man said, passing the rodent into Harry's cupped palms. "You should keep a careful eye on him in the future, just in case."

"Ratty's a girl," Harry potested, cradling her to his chest. Besides, it had been Dumbledore's actions, not his own negligence, that had caused Ratty misadventure. "May I please go to bed now? I know the way."

xoxox

Harry was very proud of how he held himself together as he walked back to Gryffindor tower. The next day during breakfast he managed to pretend nothing had happened at all; things were perfectly normal, thank you very much. 

But just in case, he performed a little ritual on the next full moon to remove all traces of foreign magic from Ratty. By the time he was satisfied with all his protections the cage was warded even more than his trunk, and enchanted twice as big on the inside for good measure. He even cast seven kinds of tracking charm on Ratty.

It wouldn't do for anyone to accuse him of being irresponsible again.

xoxox

Professor Quirrell's presence was always a bit confusing to Harry. On the one hand the man was a great teacher whose lectures were so much more interesting for that he told them as stories. His practicals though, were a mess. Quirrell's magic seemed to stutter as if through a misshapen pipe, refusing to cooperate at the most unhelpful times. 

Harry was reminded of himself, back when he'd been dependent on Remus to help him with classwork. It was inspiring that someone with a stutter like Quirrell's could even become a professor, but Harry also found it frustrating. 

As Harry's silent casting had improved he was struggling less with his magic. For him to be better at some spells than the teacher demonstrating them was just embarrassing.

Still, Quirrell was much preferable to Snape, who had made it perfectly clear from day one that he loathed Harry Potter down to the marrow of his bones.

Harry knew James had been one of Snape's biggest bullies throughout their Hogwarts years, but to hate James' son for it seemed a bit extreme.

At the same time, Harry rather thought the man had grown up to be…almost admirable. As a boy he'd been pitiable and as a teen he'd just been a mess, but now? Snape's hair was still greasy and his fingers had grown unproportionally long even with the man's looming height—yet there was something  _ intense _ to Severus Snape. 

He could capture a whole room's attention with a whisper.

Harry enjoyed watching the way Snape would whirl dramatically, his cloak snapping behind him.

The man's sharp, acerbic wit was brilliant.

Harry's fellow students truly  _ were  _ dunderheads, even if only because they were first years. And it was funny to watch Snape threaten to poison Ronald's gnome next time the thing interrupted class with a belch.

The gnome was an awful thing anyway, some kind of underdeveloped runt that looked like it shouldn't be able to prop up its potato head with that spindly body. Only the Weasleys would think a common garden pest could make a pet. For a second Harry laughed, picturing Petunia's sour face should gnomes ever begin to dig up her begonias.

"Potter, five points for not paying attention," Snape hissed from just behind him.

That was fair. "Sorry sir." Harry swiftly added the ginger root to his potion and set his flame down to simmer. 

"How do you do that?" Neville whispered from Harry's right.

Harry helped Neville fix his potion, ignoring Hermione's huff from Neville's other side. Sometimes Hermione was too book-clever, unable to see the big picture over her own scrunched nose.

"You have to add celandine  _ after  _ you reduce the heat, Neville, or it won't turn yellow."

The colours indicated what magical acidity their potion had. Potions class was all just magical chemistry.

"I know, I know," Neville whispered back. "You explained it all to me last week. What I meant is, I don't understand how you're so unaffected by…" the boy nodded towards Snape.

Harry shrugged back. In the past he'd stood aside as his friends had dangled the man in the air, calling him _Snivellus_ as they stripped off his underpants. He'd watched Snape clutch Lily's corpse to his chest and make the most terrible sounds of heartbreak, all for a woman who had thoroughly rejected him.

Some days, Harry thought it was only fair for Snape to take out all his pain on the people around him. Harry had contributed to that suffering and he was determined to face the consequences as a Gryffindor.

The rest of the time Harry looked at Snape and saw a kindred spirit. Their circumstances had pushed them both to make some truly terrible decisions, and by the time they'd try to redeem themselves it had been too late.

"I have my father's hair and my mother's eyes," he whispered back. 

Occasionally, when the killing curse blinked back at him as he brushed his teeth, Harry thought he'd inherited the worst parts of both of them.

xoxox

"What have you learnt this week, Harry?" Flitwick asked, his body brimming with enthusiasm—as if he hadn't been asking this same stupid question for half a year of Thursdays.

Harry contemplated the merits of responding with mulish silence.

An hour of silence would be extremely boring, though. He knew because he'd tried it once.

Today, though, Harry really wasn't interested in talking about  _ Expelliarmus _ , the Wit-sharpening potion, or his most recent enchanting work in Elder Futhark. It just all seemed...tedious of late. Like he was empty, and everything was shaded the same monotonous grey. 

Hoping to feel something real, he'd taken to sneaking back up to the astronomy tower more nights than not. 

"If I don't sleep enough I get very tired," Harry said. It was, after all, something he had learnt.

"That sounds very human of you."

Distracted momentarily, Harry peered at the half-goblin. "How much do goblins sleep, professor?"

Flitwick laughed. "My mother needed one hour's nap four times a day, according to my father. I get by on under five hours every night if I have a small siesta after lunch. I don't know to what extent that is representative, though."

"Oh." It made sense that every being was a bit different, but he'd somehow never thought about it before. "So  _ that's  _ why  _ you  _ meet me every Thursday? Professor McGonagall said she'd ask Professor Sinastra but then it ended up being you instead. Is it because you don't have to sleep so much?"

"You know, Harry," the charms master said, steepling his fingers, "I was expecting you to ask about this back in September."

That was simple enough to respond to. "I didn't want to know then."

Flitwick was smiling calmly, his moustache quivering with every exhaled breath. Harry thought that owning a moustache must be one of the most distracting things in the world.

"Your muggle teachers were teaching you the muggle methods for helping autistic children interact better with the world around them," Flitwick explained. "I am going to be teaching you the magical method as soon as your core is stable enough. That's what your monthly checkups with Madam Pomfrey are for, and she says your magic is almost ready."

Despite the feeling never growing intense enough for Harry to bother asking, he had been curious about the reason behind those diagnostics. "What's the magical method to make me  _ Well Adjusted _ , Professor?" In retrospect, there had been suspiciously little holding up of cards with different faces on them; he'd gone ages since the last explanation of  _ Smiling means Happy _ ,  _ Frowning means Upset _ , and other such delights.

"Legilimency."

Harry's mind stuttered to a halt.  _ What? _

"Using weak surface legilimency encourages you to meet people's eyes as you're speaking, and you can divine your conversational counterpart's emotions." Flitwick made it sound so normal.

Like using a pneumatic jackhammer to hang a painting on the wall, this wasn't overkill—it was  _ madness _ . And Harry knew about such things, after all, Vernon's company made drills.

He swallowed. "Isn't there a better way?"

But Flitwick didn't seem to mind Harry's apprehension. "It's the way things are done, you mustn't worry. In fact, many youths on the spectrum develop the skill as a facet of their controlled accidental magic. Professor Snape will be teaching you once you're ready, but before learning legilimency it is vital that you learn occlumency." Flitwick was beaming even more than usual. "The reason I am your counsellor instead of Professor Sinistra is because I can teach you the self-defensive branch of mind magic."

Harry sat in stunned silence, letting the convoluted logic of it slither through his mind. It made a perverted kind of sense, in the same way the Statue of Magical Brethren in the Ministry's entrance made sense.

"I think I preferred it when I thought she just needed to sleep more." 

"You mustn't worry," Flitwick repeated. "The mind arts can be fun!"

Harry thought of Snape rooting around in his brain, his presence just as slimy as the Dark Lord's had been when that monster had crawled his way through Peter's memories.

_ Sure _ . Yes. Fun.

xoxox

I love all the support you lot give me, it makes me really look forward to posting. To my lurkers, thank you for reading. To my reviewers, see you in the comments.


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